Hoffmann (after)

Les Contes d'Hoffmann -- Metropolitan Opera, 12/03/09
Calleja, Lindsey, Held, Kim, Netrebko, Gubanova, Oke / Levine

The true value of the Met's new production of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann may take several revivals -- and, perhaps, a tenor less spellbinding than Joseph Calleja -- to reveal itself, but after last night's premiere I would call it at the least the greatest (and perhaps the first) native triumph of Peter Gelb's term as General Manager. (Butterfly, Trovatore, and others were imports that played to much acclaim before arriving.) And certainly when one includes the cast contribution, this is the event of the season so far. If you can't get tickets, at least see the (unfortunately to-be-censored) movie version later this month.

*     *     *
His Met debut Barber of Seville was antiseptic, but that seems to have been a trial run for director Bartlett Sher. His work for Hoffmann retains some of the tics of that Barber (door frames, etc.) but this time shows a fittingly operatic imagination lacking in that first try.

Sher's Hoffmann opens with a tableau of ruinous desire: mostly-nude women sprawl -- as if mannequins, or in the aftermath of a debauch -- on the floor and on the benches that will, when the scene turns from vision into reality, become Luther's tavern in Nuremberg. (Seriously: I'd never expected to see a passel of pasties prominently featured at the Met -- wasn't it just yesterday that the skin content of Moses & Aron had to be tuned way down?) Meanwhile Hoffmann's writing desk sits, covered with papers, downstage left, where it will remain for all but the Antonia act, for which it's temporarily displaced by Antonia's own piano -- also covered with papers.

This is the basic schema of the opera -- doomed-to-fail desire versus the artistic recompense for its failure -- and Sher sets it out strikingly. The initial women stir, others (clothed) appear -- unidentified, but later shown to be visions of Stella, Olympia, Antonia, and Giulietta -- and in the poet's corner the Muse goes to sing her intent: she will wean Hoffmann from his ruinous attachments and lead him to success in art.

And in a sense the three Hoffmann stories within this frame tell of desire's basic perils: Olympia (the doll) is about the possibility of bestowing love on someone worthless and ridiculous; Antonia (the too-frail singer) about the awful potential consequences of desire's consummation (though yes, she is ultimately done in by the singer's desire for glory and not romantic desire per se); and Giulietta (the courtesan who steals Hoffmann's shadow) about the possibility of grasping both of the previous perils and yet choosing ruin.

The art, of course, is in the telling itself, both by Hoffmann within the story and by Offenbach, his librettists, the cast, and the production team in our world. In this case Sher, set designer Michael Yeargan, and costume designer Catherine Zuber have, as most predecessors, found varied and striking elaborations for the various settings and acts while maintaining a unifying base: the black floorboard space that underlies all locations, the artist's paper-strewn surface, and Hoffmann's dark suit and coat (the outfit -- though thankfully sans hat most of the time -- much seen in ads).

Sher writes of his first inspiration for the production being Kafka, but there is no trace of that left in what's actually onstage. The 1920s do get a decent airing -- the half-dressed half-sinister decadents are more than a little Weimar, and one might associate Hoffmann's outfit with Chaplin or Magritte, who both flourished in that decade -- but there's no Kafka. The other stated influence -- Fellini -- is fairly present in spirit, helping the stunning and fantastic stage pictures Sher creates in the Olympia and Giulietta acts (the latter with another -- this time applause-inducing -- surprise display of flesh). In between, oddly enough, is what seems to be an homage to Carsen's great Onegin here, with a field of white, characters seen by their shadows, and minimal scenery...

Sher et al. do add one thread, or rather raise it out of subtext: Hoffmann's difficulty fitting in (and eventual ejection from all the milieus outside the tavern), as Offenbach had had difficulty as an artist and a Jew. This got a bit too cute at the end, with Hoffmann picking up the white cloth the revelers had been using to act out Kleinzach and himself wearing it to evoke a tallit (he does take it off at the very end when he sits down to his art), but other elements -- like the separate space created by his desk in each scene -- work well.

More on the production when I see it again soon.

*     *     *
The cast was the side that had the most upheaval, but one wouldn't have known it from this premiere. Rolando Villazon for Hoffmann became Calleja -- who, though prodigious in gifts, had never sung the part before in his life. Anna Netrebko as all the heroines became Kathleen Kim as Olympia, Netrebko as Antonia/Stella, and Ekaterina Gubanova as Giulietta. Finally, Elina Garanča for the Muse/Nicklausse became Kate Lindsey and Rene Pape as all the villains became Alan Held. James Levine, after recent back surgery, did recover in time to conduct the premiere as scheduled.

Calleja first. I've had huge expectations of him since his 2006 debut, and while his bit in the 125th Anniversary Gala created yet more believers, he's still only 31 and had never sung a role of nearly Hoffmann's weight or length before anywhere, much less at the Met. And yet, while I agree with Maury that he -- particularly at the beginning of the night -- was a touch cautious and didn't show quite the freedom and rhythmic/expressive mastery one has heard from him in Italian pieces and from others here, Calleja makes the show, and would make it a must-see even if Sher's staging were leaden. When he sings -- which is much of the long night, and he makes it through without issue, even sounding strongest and most free at the end -- the show is about little else but sitting there and taking in his implausibly spacious golden-age sound. It's the sort of experience that justifies the otherwise-laughable tenor cult and all its otherwise-inexplicable trappings, the sort that makes me regret not having been able to take an opera novice or two to this performance.

Calleja, as in his Elisir, also does well conveying the straightforward, earnest love and desire of his character. (It is the addition of this true-feeling central character that transforms the hijinks around him -- much of which might otherwise fit in the frothy operettas that long made Offenbach famous -- into serious and even sinister stuff.)

His ladies did reasonably well, though as perhaps appropriate for this unified production telling Hoffmann's story none were able to really compete with the hero. Kathleen Kim came the closest, but Olympia's dazzling aria has often taken the laurels (not least for Natalie Dessay in 1998). On the strong and full-voiced (as opposed to delicate/elegant) side among Olympias, Kim pulled off her showpiece well, particularly the end. This plus the charm she showed in making a splash in Rusalka has me excited to hear her Zerbinetta later this season.

Netrebko, fairly wisely, stuck to the regular soprano part (Olympia is high-soprano and Giulietta a mezzo) among the heroines. After sounding surprisingly poor and even old -- ungainly, unsteady, with pitch issues and little distinguished sound beyond the huge high notes -- in the initial aria ("Elle a fui"), she improved through the act to a pretty good (and quite loud) climax (though the repeated clutching and re-clutching at the papers as she died was a bit much).

Gubanova sang quite well in the least grateful heroine part (Giulietta). The real mezzo part in the opera is, of course, the pants role of Nicklausse. Kate Lindsey was, as ever, excellent in male attire and, as ever, sang with admirable style and panache. In this opera her instrument isn't on the same dominant scale as, say, Calleja's, but that fits: Nicklausse is Hoffmann's sidekick, not the other way around.

Alan Held did well as the villains, musical and plausibly menacing despite his not-so-dark basic sound, but didn't make much of his big Venetian solo ("Scintille, diamant"). Alan Oke sang very well -- not least in Frantz's song parodying Antonia's musical ambition -- but probably didn't get as much applause as he deserved because he blended in to the other bit players at curtain call.

Levine's firm hand was welcome in this kaleidoscope of moods.

*     *     *
There is a lot in this production and in this opera, almost too much to take in at once. Fortunately, it runs until January 2. Unfortunately, it's pretty much all sold out. Still...

Watch this space

To be posted this week(end): reviews of some Mozart performances and that premiere tonight.

Not to be posted this week, or perhaps ever: review of Dorothea Röschmann's Carnegie Hall recital, which has been postponed to April 12. Yes, that's the night of the Armida premiere at the Met -- a poor rescheduling choice for a vocal event. I'll see which I end up attending in the spring.

The happy recitalist

Recital (Brahms, Wolf, Hahn, Mahler) -- Alice Tully Hall, 11/29/09
Kirchschlager / Jones

Perhaps it was Warren Jones (for Malcolm Martineau), perhaps the greater notice that it was to be a solo recital, perhaps something else, but Austrian mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager's performance yesterday was quite the opposite of the uncomfortable forced march she led through Romantic song three years ago. On this Sunday both she and her program were poised, forward, and lively -- a much happier combination.

Not that the atmosphere was wholly placid: in fact, the whole event was charged (particularly at the start) with a certain nervousness that contrasted interestingly with the calm sonic appeal of Kirchschlager's singing. And yet at every point she seemed bent on turning this energy into an impeccable joy -- and it mostly worked. Even the coughing that prompted an awkward admonishment from her last time this time prompted a joke, as she spoke of wanting to cough herself between songs and then actually doing so (to much laughter).

Instead of -- as last time -- a long jumble of Schumann followed by a long jumble of Schubert, Kirchschlager and Jones did four later-Romantic groups of songs: 7 by Brahms, 6 by Wolf (from the Mörike set), Hahn, and Mahler (from Des Knaben Wunderhorn). The Brahms was well-sung but perhaps a bit too insistently presented to capture his full appeal, but the rest of the program suited Kirchschlager's strengths as a performer.

Her best expressiveness, I think, is musical: she's game for all sorts of turns and elaborations on her pleasant sound. Her acting is well-judged, well-shaded and hardly inhibited but more self-effacing than overpowering either in her own persona or in the characters'. And the words are -- well, perhaps this was the cause of some nervousness. For whatever reason she seemed to be battling them a bit, not only changing (from, I assume, memory lapse) but blurring the German from time to time, if not quite swallowing the text wholesale in the sometime manner of Matthias Goerne.

On the whole, despite both word slips and a certain unease on high notes, Kirchschlager served the late Romantic program well. The highlight, I think, was in the Wolf songs, where she perfectly caught the mix of reverie and ecstasy of "Auf einer Wanderung" to begin a set that finished with his more single-mindedly rapt (than Schumann's familiar version) setting of "Er ist's".

She finished with two encores, though I'm afraid I've the first has already slipped my mind. The second was Brahms' famous lullaby, a fine send-off. Warren Jones, with whom Kirchschlager seemed to have good rapport, was as ever both an expressive and delightfully precise accompanist.

Unamplified again (2)

As previously suggested here, Tommasini took a victory lap for the new City Opera acoustical arrangement.

Hoffmann (before)

As you may have heard, one of the more unsettled new productions of recent memory becomes even less certain as Joseph Calleja withdrew from this afternoon's public dress rehearsal of Hoffmann. Only a precaution, one hopes! At least one reader offered basically positive thoughts on the whole, but feel free to comment if you were at the Met earlier today.

From the House...

From the House of the Dead -- Metropolitan Opera, 11/12/09
Margita, Streit, Hoare, Mattei, White / Salonen

Much-lauded director Patrice Chéreau has never before done a show at the Met, and on the evidence of this Janacek premiere one suspects he's never seen a show there either. Perhaps at the previous stops of this touring production his step of putting supertitles onstage (projected on the dull grey walls) in the general vicinity of the characters seemed brilliant, but it's no accident that this house uses individual subtitle screens instead. Not the least reason is that there's no spot (except perhaps dead center where singers are) from which every member of the audience can clearly make out titles -- and having the words moved from left to right and back again only makes things worse, messing up one section of the audience after another with titling hidden behind a wall or some other feature. This was a terrible idea, and I'm surprised Peter Gelb or some other Met veteran didn't have it cut.

Besides this distracting, unnecessary, and possibly illegible underlining, the production was mostly what one might have expected. Drab grey sets, check. Modern clothes of indeterminate time and place, check. Full frontal male nudity, check. Physical direction emphasizing earthy brutality and roughness, check. Not that these are bad choices, mind you, but they're the predictable ones. The show did end on a sour note when Chéreau didn't bother having the eagle fly off: the thing being a wooden model anyway, most of the prisoners pretended to see it go off to the left while one guy just folded it up and put it behind his back. Cheap.

Oh, but the music, and the opera! That was something to hear and take in. Where other operas lengthen time, Janacek's shortens it: the endless grimness of a prison camp becomes an evanescent near-vignette, conveying the essence of the life without any of the tedium. One mini-story shifts to another as if in a dream, which Chéreau's production highlights by running the action mostly together with little sense of time transition. And the musical language should be familiar to any who know the composer's earlier works.

All the performers serve Janacek well, including debuting singers Stefan Margita and Peter Hoare and of course debuting conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, who well continues the recent house tradition of excellent Janacek conducting. But the show is stolen by baritone Peter Mattei, whose character Shishkov gets the fullest and last story: a tale of love, not-quite-love, and bloody jealousy that -- in Mattei's hands at least -- is not far from the essence of opera.

Unamplified again

The news that City Opera's home will now be free of artificial sonic sweetener (that is, miking, as indirect as it may have been) is both surprising and welcome. Anthony Tommasini, take a bow!: as I noted years ago, getting rid of this "enhancement" has been a persistent crusade of his since it was first introduced to the State Theater a decade ago.

Now, to see if the company can find enough money to survive for another decade...

Marie Theres'

Der Rosenkavalier -- Metropolitan Opera, 10/16/09
Graham, Fleming, Sigmundsson, Persson, Vargas / de Waart

Strauss and Hofmannsthal's Marschallin is essentially -- she's not the Empress Maria Theresa, but as a namesake she stands in for her -- at the apex of her social universe, at a time and place in which that was incalculably important. She bears her husband's title of "Field Marshal", but he is far off and in any case seemingly more engaged in hunting than actual warfare. While he is gone the world is hers, and it's a world where "soft" power reigns to an extent hardly imaginable after the Great War's aftermath.

Hofmannsthal sets it up as clearly as you'd like. Though its existence of course depends on hard objective matters like soldiering and war (the shadow of the absent Field Marshal), value in this universe is quite securely held elsewhere: in blood, land, title, and a good name -- prizes of birth or consent, not pure force. In their grasp Faninal, who is not only hugely wealthy but has gotten so by backing the empire's literal power as military supplier, is reduced to comic obsequiousness and impotence. These all, by contrast, strengthen the Marschallin, who rules even the opera's lone authority figure -- the Police Commisioner -- by respect and personal suasion.

And who could be more fit for this lofty position? For the Marschallin incarnates not only the prized values of her universe, but its professed virtues: with all her standing and power she is not just beautiful and well-dressed but patroness of the arts, generous to widows and orphans, patient and attentive to her old relative, resistant to gossip and maliciousness, and honestly if not-quite-conventionally pious. At her levee -- and in her opera -- the chaos of the world is ordered by her sympathies into the coherent and beautiful whole one would like this long past to have been. (For Hofmannsthal's libretto is as much apologia for the soon-to-end era as anything else.) Only one thing is excluded: herself, as a person with her own desires, and past, and future. She indulges this personal self with Octavian, but both she and we soon learn that their connection isn't, for her, just that -- an indulgence, not an essential.

It's Baron Ochs, of course, who triggers the crisis, because she can (herself) do nothing about him. The Marschallin incarnates the best possibilities of propriety, and so when propriety allows and even covers the Baron's gross behavior, she is stuck with it. For Ochs is Marschallin's opposite, the incarnation of their past's vice: where she transforms social value into social virtue, he unabashedly appropriates it for himself, extracting every personal benefit from his rank and privilege. (Mind you, he doesn't, like Don Giovanni, cross into actual criminality -- this is a comedy. He just gropes a lot, and tries to grab Faninal's fortune and poor Sophie.) To indulge her personal disgust with him would be to erase their essential distinction, and so the Marschallin can't. As far as she's in charge of it, Ochs is able to exploit the social system -- and she knows it.

Octavian, however, is not so bound. Whether because he's a man or because he's young or simply because he was born with a different character, his direct and natural reaction to injustice is to fix it, whether by (counterproductively) trying to console the Marschallin or by telling off Ochs or, finally, by wrecking the Baron's engagement. But this latter sort of social disruption needs subsequent reordering, and so...

When the Marschallin reappears onstage in Act III, she is ready to deploy her social power against Ochs, and in fact does so, gaily but implacably dismissing his whole marriage scheme. What has changed? Well, he has allowed a giant and embarrassing ruckus to arise, always a bad social move. But what else? Is she at last indulging her own distaste, or -- as Ochs insinuates -- simply siding with her lover in this tug-of-war? Or is she, perhaps, upholding young love?

The choice is hers, even after she has dismissed the Baron, for there are still virtuous and selfish purposes the act can serve. And -- well, she is who she is, and it's not Ochs-like in the least. But the cost of virtue is what she'd foreseen in the first Act: she has to give up Octavian, an acceptable personal indulgence vis-a-vis merely her marriage, but no acceptable reason to intervene with Ochs nor stand between the young lovers. It's not the end of love, surely -- Octavian, as the creators noted, won't be the last. But for the moment she lets him drop to enter her role of social avatar, transforming what has happened into the just confirmation of Octavian and Sophie's perfect match.

(And so those, beginning perhaps with Lotte Lehmann, who've tried to make the Marschallin's final "Ja ja" momentous are quite wrong. By the time she has withdrawn and reappeared with Faninal, her personal aspect should have disappeared wholly into the conventions of her quasi-parental role. "Yes, yes", she says, sympathetically but with an essential blankness, her drama already offstage.)

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Opening night or not, I never quite feel the season has begun until its first unexpected success -- and while others were long sure this revival was to be a triumph, I was not. Renee Fleming's last run here in the part was about a decade ago (early 2000), and one of the worst interpretations the role has received: seeming not to get the Marschallin's character at all, Fleming tackled it with the same full sound and near-hysterical emo manner that she might have used for Desdemona or Violetta. (This doesn't work.) She battled her un-Straussian tendency to less-than-great effect last fall, and I feared a repeat.

And that by way of saying: I've rarely been more glad to have been more wrong. Last Friday's show -- and her part in it -- was not all great, but enough hit the mark to make for a tremendous whole, a performance to remind one of the piece's irreplaceable appeal.

*     *     *
In Act I -- a soprano tour de force of varied emotion, mood, and singing -- Fleming was great, in a way I would never have expected. Whether consciously or from vocal development, she has lightened her voice throughout, never overpowering the subtleties of text and phrase with overripe tone. This is a real change, but the development of her phrasing and her expression of the Marschallin's moods has been no less than revolutionary. Whether it was superior coaching, Robin Guarino's stage direction for this revival, the influence of conductor Edo de Waart, or just the life perspective gained by the passing of time, what had seemed opaque to Fleming a decade ago is now transparently grasped and expressed the whole Act through. Her Marschallin is human -- she flares near anger twice -- but each time we can see it dissipate in the character's natural reserve of cool reflectiveness. She smiles, and sings with a smile, and feels the joyful waltz rhythms as she did not last time. And the hardest but absolutely essential emotional arcs -- the long, discursive, hot-and-cool buildups to dual climaxes of mixed relief, melancholy, and rapture (first at the end of her monologue and then again after the act-closing scene with Octavian) that are the heart of the opera -- these were overmuscled and went awfully awry in 2000, but Fleming now navigates them with precision and real understanding. Glorious.

Act II brings the other happy surprise of the revival: Miah Persson. As everyone seems to notice right off, the Swedish soprano is pretty much an ideal Sophie, both in voice and person. In sound she's not a miscast high squeaker -- the Presentation of the Rose doesn't even hit high C -- but has the live richness by which the heavenly state of her mind expands out into the listener's ear. Even more impressive is how firmly she nails Sophie's character -- neither flighty nor hyper, but a quick and emotionally responsive idealist, one who truly believes all the fine things she's been taught. (The unfortunate part where the higher-ranked man can act like a pig without anyone daring to call him on it was apparently left out.) "Aber die Ehe ist ein heiliger Stand" (But marriage is a holy estate), she sings, and she really means it. What young man wouldn't want to confirm such a girl's high estimation of the world?

Susan Graham's Octavian was great a decade ago and it is, if anything, even greater now. The breadth of colors and feelings she's shown recently in Clemenza (as Sesto) and Don Giovanni (as Elvira) carry over here, and her characteristic emotional directness is just right for Octavian.

Perhaps weakest of the main cast was Kristinn Sigmundsson, who was still pretty good. He sings the rougher, more boorish variant of Ochs (the legendary Richard Mayr was more suave and charming, but it's a tradition that's fallen off), though well and not without a residue of social nicety. Sigmundsson has a relish for the part and a nice sense of rhythm, but lacks the outsize vocal or personal presence that distinguished some of predecessors.

Ramon Vargas phrased with his usual ardor as the Italian Singer but seemed still be be suffering from the indisposition that had kept him out of the dress rehearsal the week before. But all the small parts were -- again surprisingly -- deftly handled. Met Council winner Rodell Rosel made his Met debut in the run as a strong-voiced and slightly crazed Valzacchi, while Wendy White did her usual good work as Annina. Further -- perhaps, again, one should thank Robin Guarino -- the production has finally decided to stop trying to make a joke of the noble widow and orphans, and in fact has gotten the details so right that the Baron's bastard son Leopold is now ideally handled (Stephen Paynter plays him as a dimwit who's himself smitted with Sophie -- and perhaps Mariandel! -- and not the mere troll we've seen in the past)!

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Yet as well as the first two acts go, the last does not quite measure up. Fleming, for one, does not seem to have grasped this part of the Marschallin's role as strongly as she has the first act. Or, rather: she seems to be trying to get it right (she now keeps a strong basic physical composure, with rather less fidgeting than before) but does not quite hit the mark, at times reverting to dark heavy tone and basically snapping at the Baron as she tells him off (the text says the Marschallin here is gaily superior, which considering the great gulf in their standing is naturally correct). Perhaps, as intimate as she may have gotten with the beset Marschallin, Fleming is less comfortable with the Marschallin as exerciser of social power.

In any case, a full-blooded account of the Baron's exit waltz sweeps the previous action away before the finale. Here as elsewhere conductor Edo de Waart (a late substitution upon Levine's back surgery) was excellent, providing the waltz-rhythmic backdrop (and occasional foreground) to the story as Levine has not always done (and, I fear, Levine may not do when he returns). de Waart avoided extremes of speed or expansiveness but kept a well-sprung liveliness throughout, adding much to the evening... Until, unfortunately, the trio.

Perhaps modern audiences simply haven't heard the famous Rosenkavalier trio performed at a proper, non-draggy tempo? Because judging from the talk afterwards, this version was about as popular as these gilding-the-lily ones usually are when trotted out at galas and the like -- which is to say, very. Yet while the singers handled it fairly well (and perhaps the speed was even their request), as usual the lack of speed drained much of the life from the thing. Strauss' sonic indulgences need more well-defined time, not less.

And yet by the time Octavian and Sophie wrapped up the long show with their final duet, the overall success of the night was pretty obvious. Only unexpected illness kept me from going again tonight, and I expect I'll try again even without de Waart.

There he goes...

I wasn't at Tuesday's Rosenkavalier, but positive reports from that and Friday's dress rehearsal may get me to see Edo de Waart's version of the piece before he departs.

But here is the long-contemplated appendix to my February post on Lisa della Casa: that great Marschallin at the 1960 opening of Salzburg's Festspielhaus, in the monologue and closing duet of Rosenkavalier Act I. Sena Jurinac is Octavian.

I'm not sure if the embed widget works, but I believe the download should.

Act I (conclusion).mp3

The end of the QXR era

Tonight at 8PM, the sale of WQXR arranged in July makes itself heard on the air. The deal was a three-way transaction: the New York Times company, continuing to hemorrhage money in the Pinch Sulzburger era, sold the WQXR name and website to WNYC (formerly a classical-music competitor, now long since taken over by the public radio talk-talk) and WQXR's most valuable asset -- its place in the middle of the dial and 6000 watt broadcast license -- to Univision Radio. WNYC also got the frequency (105.9) and 600 watt broadcast license heretofore used by WCAA, the Spanish-language channel that will take over the WQXR spot. So: the Times got money, WNYC got a station called WQXR at 105.9, and Univision Radio got to put its Spanish-language programming at 96.3FM with 10 times the watts.

WNYC's press reports have been fairly positive -- the "new" station opens this evening with a live concert from Carnegie Hall -- but it hardly disguises the literal marginalization of classical music radio in the city. And yet... It's hard to be depressed. I -- like many of my readers, I would guess -- grew up listening to WQXR: it was my parents' background music of choice. But it's been a long, long time since I've listened: CDs, mp3 players, internet radio, and now the Met Sirius channel have provided much more of the narrowcast musical experience I've wanted than the ever-more-watery broadcast model of QXR. Even Met radio broadcasts are better heard on the internet streams of stations that don't use huge dynamic compression for drive-time friendliness.

Listeners not comfortable with newer options may, of course, be harmed. But that is an ever-shrinking population.

At any rate, please remember that Met broadcasts will be at 105.9, not 96.3.

Ouch

I got this press release a few minutes ago:

James Levine to Undergo Surgery for Herniated Spinal Disc

Mr. Ronald Wilford, Chairman of Columbia Artists and James Levine’s manager has announced that Mr. Levine will undergo immediate surgery for a herniated spinal disc. The procedure necessitates withdrawing from his scheduled performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera.

Mr. Levine has withdrawn from performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston on Tuesday, September 29 and Saturday, October 3 and from Carnegie Hall’s opening night performance on Thursday, October 1. Mr. Levine has also withdrawn from performances of Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera on October 6 and 10.

Let's hope he recovers quickly from this latest back issue.

Less Gagnidze

So it seems that last night's performance of Tosca (also featuring an unscheduled Levine cancellation) had George Gagnidze singing the first act and only acting the second while Carlo Guelfi sang from the side. Very odd, and I hope this won't launch another set of revolving door casts as in the last years' Tristans.

The awful truth

Tosca -- Metropolitan Opera, 9/21/09
Mattila, Alvarez, Gagnidze / Levine

Is Tosca beautiful? Probably, for Cavaradossi lovingly remembers her beauty, but it is her eyes that inspire passion in her admirers -- and not just the physical form on her face, but the spirit shown therein. It's by the storms of feeling seen in her dark eyes that both Cavaradossi and Scarpia are inflamed and ensnared.

For the 2009-2010 season's opening night, the Met seemed to have bet on a similar sort of appreciation for her namesake opera. As it turned out, however, the negative reaction (mostly -- whether from variations of politeness, engagement, or aesthetic -- from the upper sections of the house) to Monday's new production dwarfed even the justified boo-fest for Mary Zimmerman's insult last season. Furthermore, every last booer seems to have put his opinion out on the internet. It seems that "Tosca" is loved in a rather different way than Tosca herself.

*     *     *
Director Luc Bondy is, despite some hilarious misunderstandings to the contrary, no sort of avant-gardeist. In fact he is a realist, arguably more so than his predecessor Zeffirelli: only where Zeffirelli's interest is in decorative detail, Bondy is primarily focused on the psychology of the piece and its characters. And although she dates the very beginning to an Elektra the year before, one can see Bondy's influence on the flowering of Karita Mattila's great phase in the 1996 Chatelet production of Don Carlos, long a DVD staple (and given that it was an early HD experiment, shouldn't a Blu-Ray be out by now?). Thirteen years ago she -- and the rest of the cast -- was not only gratifyingly precise in character and interaction but as explosively expressive as at any time since.

Now as then, the psychologies of the characters -- even the small ones -- are sharpened and foregrounded. The contempt and contemptibility of the Sacristan, Spoletta as evil's indispensable functionary, even the bland more-or-less sympathy of the last-act jailer (here combined with the firing squad leader) are sketched in full clarity, perhaps not least for not being drowned in a vast accumulation of historical set detail. But this is hardly the stuff of boos or bravos.

It is Scarpia's part that is here most sharpened, to vivid but apparently controversial effect. Scarpia is, as he himself notes, a man of power and appetite -- it is no coincidence that Act II begins with him eating, as Act I begins with Cavaradossi too engaged with art, love, and politics to eat -- and Bondy mercilessly puts it onstage. So, in a remarkable tableau, Act I closes with Scarpia -- after his famous cry that Tosca makes him forget God -- blasphemously and licentiously embracing the processional statue of the Virgin as the Church crowd recoils. Act II opens with Scarpia taking his supper in the easy company of three trollops, who tend to him a bit (the Met's first blowjob scene was apparently cut/made more ambiguous since the dress rehearsal) during his aria. This latter scene recalls nothing so much as Tony Soprano at the Bada Bing club, though the decor and clothing are broadly colorful and neutral, not brassily vulgar.

What the decor is not is elaborate, eye-catching, the High-Renaissance masterpiece that is the actual Palazzo Farnese. It offers no relief, lends no false gentility to Scarpia's gross perversion of power and position. It's for this, I think, that the Act II set got so much grief.

*     *     *
As the gross and appreciative elements in Puccini's men -- here so decisively split between Scarpia and Cavaradossi -- are sometimes combined in a single character (e.g. Pinkerton), so the imperious and vulnerable elements of Puccini's women -- sometimes split between two characters (Musetta and Mimi, Turandot and Liu) -- are here, as in Manon Lescaut, combined in the title character. But while Manon Lescaut is a seeming naif who is fatally and inexorably tied to the grand, Tosca -- despite the stabbing -- is a grand excitable diva who is really a softie, disastrously out of her depth in the game of life and death Scarpia, Angelotti, and Cavaradossi are playing. (For what else is the meaning of "Vissi d'arte"?)

Bondy again gets this right -- the way Scarpia so easily dupes her in Act I is dead on -- but it goes against the strengths of his lead soprano. For Mattila is sui generis today in her sincere concentrated abandon in emotional extremity. But while Tosca honestly feels the passionate and excited responses she offers to her wild situation, there's always a bit of artifice mixed in, an extent to which her high emotional pitch is true to neither herself (again, look at the aria) nor the world she's in (for once, the long dramatic irony of the last Act is played straight in its perfect eerie tone). That sort of grand humbug is not Mattila's strength; her greatest virtue undercut, she offers a perfectly fine interpretation that lacks the scale of her recent Jenufa, Salome, Elsa, or, yes, Manon Lescaut.

*     *     *
But why, in fact, the angry reception? For some booing was heard after Act II, perhaps the musical and dramatic success of the evening. George Gagnidze had sung and acted Scarpia with relish, tenor Marcelo Alvarez had delivered a stirring "Vittoria!" and maintained his usual firmness of characterization as Cavaradossi, and Mattila had sung well and put her electric nervousness to good use at last, registering the enormity of the stabbing and its antecedent events in the tense rest of her body. Who could object?

Ah, but Bondy had dared to omit the crucifix and candles by which Tosca dresses up her killing in a bit of post-hoc piety. (He, like Zeffirelli before him, also omitted her deliberately washing her hands of blood and fixing her hair, but never mind that...) To be honest, I can scarcely believe people are serious in claiming this as some sort of deal-breaker.

Crucifix and candles are, of course, part of the familiar and comforting wrap of nostalgic historicity in which much of the audience is used to seeing the stark and shocking story of the opera. It is at bottom, as Bondy himself observes in his program note, an unpleasant story, so much so that as one thinks on it one wonders how "Tosca" came to be beloved at all. Yes, there is Puccini's gorgeous music, but the dark and evil presence of Scarpia is strong even in the ear. And Puccini doesn't employ the quick rhythms and cabalettas by which Verdi sounds the exhilaration of doom.

Bondy offers, as is his wont, the dark psychological currents of the piece, unmistakably presented. And, aside from the misconceived freeze-frame "jump" business at the end, I think it works fairly well. But as audiences take different sorts of pleasure in the art, a production that is just the one thing is bound to dissatisfy many.

Unconventional productions that triumph at the Met often do so by offering sheer physical beauty, in design and sound, to make up for the lost pleasures of the familiar. While the current cast certainly sounds good, its virtues are more of character: Bryn Terfel and Jonas Kaufmann may transform things when they arrive in the spring. And the design, though reasonably handsome, is hardly the wonder one got with Wernicke's FroSch or Minghella's Butterfly -- its most striking element, Scarpia's wonderfully sinister crocodile coat, is too subtle to be seen by most in the house. (But the movie cameras will pick it up.)

*     *     *
And still I suspect that Monday's reaction had less to do with the particulars of this production and more to do with Franco Zeffirelli. Though one of his worst Met productions, his "Tosca" is beloved largely because it buries the evil and shocking elements of the story in its mass of comforting -- and, yes, beautiful -- details. To have a Zef production replaced by a show that strips things down was bound to inflame his fans, regardless of the quality (or lack thereof) of the result.

Because of this, and because of the pile-on effect among the critics, I doubt we'll know what's actually in this show for a while. It would not entirely surprise me, however, to see Bondy's "Tosca" return at some point in triumph, as the last epic boo-barrage I attended eventually did. I'd be even less surprised to see the show get a good reception next month in movie form.

One last note before I end this too-long post: unlike too many other production teams, Bondy and company did not cower from their boos or hide behind Levine or the leading lady's skirt. In fact, they came out -- with a smile, I think -- to receive the boos again in the plaza curtain call! For this, at least, one should commend them.

Season six

This back-dated post indexes the blog's commentary on the 2009-2010 Metropolitan Opera season. It will be updated as new reviews are posted.

Season preview

Opening night: Tosca
Der Rosenkavalier
From the House of the Dead
Les Contes d'Hoffmann

2009-2010 Met season preview

This is mostly the text of my February post after the initial season announcement, with some edits to reflect changes since then. Cast changes in those months are highlighted.

Note that not every cast combination is listed below -- just most of the recurring ones.

Tosca (new Luc Bondy production)
Mattila, Alvarez, Gagnidze / Levine (opening night through October)
Mattila, Alvarez, Gagnidze / Colaneri (October -- 3 out of 5 performances)
Mattila, Kaufmann, Terfel / Levine (April)
Dessì, Giordani, Gagnidze / Auguin (end of April-May)
New: No more complaints about Juha Uusitalo, who's been mercifully axed from this production (though not -- yet -- the spring Flying Dutchman) at the last minute. Both of Karita Mattila's casts have potential, at least with Levine in the pit; Daniela Dessi, who might be an interesting Italian contrast, is saddled with the uninspiring baton-work of Philippe Auguin.
As for opening night itself, I expect those yearning for a specific Puccini sound will complain as they did about Mattila's Manon Lescaut. But Tosca has been a star singing actress' part for a long, long time, and Bondy has inspired Mattila to some of her best work.

Figaro
de Niese, Relyea, Bell, Skovhus, Leonard / Ettinger (October)
Oropesa, Pisaroni, Dasch, Tezier, Leonard / Luisi (November)
de Niese, Pisaroni, Dasch, Tezier, Leonard / Luisi (December)
John Relyea has been intolerable in the title part, and as curious as I am about unknown debutant Dan Ettinger, I'm sure Fabio Luisi will impress in the pit here. Wait until November and Lisette Oropesa's likely less-affected Susanna.
New: de Niese, who sang well but un-touchingly as Eurydice last season, sings the three December Susannas for which Oropesa had been originally scheduled. Note that Met Council winner (as seen in "The Audition") Angela Meade (of all people) has a one-off Countess in the first of these.

Magic Flute
Phillips, Klink, Miklósa, Maltman, Zeppenfeld / Labadie (September)
Kleiter, Polenzani, Shagimuratova, Gunn, König / Fischer (April)
New: Susanna Phillips (another, most memorable, Met Council winner) is in as Pamina; Genia Kühmeier is out. I'm not sure why, but I'm not complaining either.

Aida
Urmana, Zajick, Botha, Guelfi / Gatti (October)
Urmana, Zajick, Margison, Guelfi / Carignani (end of October-November)
Papian, Zajick, Licitra, Guelfi / Carnignani (April)
Not bad casting -- and some fairly promising conductors -- if you crave the Met's grand Aida. So much for the internet rumor of Salvatore Licitra being finished at the Met... Though I do think Johan Botha is the better bet here.
New: Note that the first group will be the performers in the moviecast.

Barber of Seville
DiDonato, Banks, Pogossov / Benini (October)
DiDonato, Banks, Vassallo / Benini (end of October-November)
Damrau, Brownlee, Vassallo / Benini (February)
I saw the amazing Joyce DiDonato in this production two years ago with Lawrence (the sometime DJ) Brownlee as Almaviva and Russell Braun as Figaro: a pleasant show all around, though DiDonato's was the only major star instrument on display. I suspect these casts will do similarly, though I wouldn't sell Barry Banks short. Conductor Maurizio Benini has grown on me a bit.
New: I doubt DiDonato will be able to top the whole singing on a broken leg/in a wheelchair thing from Covent Garden this summer, but who knows?

Der Rosenkavalier
Fleming, Graham, Persson, Sigmundsson, Vargas / Levine (October)
Fleming, Graham, Schäfer, Sigmundsson, Cutler / Levine (January)
Librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal rolls over in his grave as Renee Fleming reprises her emo Marschallin. The rest of the cast is promising, though, particularly in October. This Strauss opera has never been one of James Levine's strong pieces.
New: Perhaps Levine assistant Jens Georg Bachmann's sole conductorial outing (October 22) could liven things up?

Damnation of Faust
Borodina, Vargas, Abdrazakov / Conlon (October-November)
What a cast! Too bad about the production.

Turandot
Guleghina, Giordani, Poplavskaya / Nelsons (November)
Lindstrom, Giordani, Poplavskaya / Nelsons (November)
Guleghina, Porretta, Poplavskaya / Nelsons (November)
Guleghina, Licitra, Kovalevska / Nelsons (January)
The Met is doing 16 performances of this (in)famously over-the-top Zeffirelli version of Puccini's opera, all but one conducted by the young Latvian newcomer Andris Nelsons. But to see this show without seeing Latvian soprano Maija Kovalevska as Liu would be criminal.
New: The moviecast is in November. As I said, criminal.

From the House of the Dead (new Patrice Chéreau production)
White, Margita, Mattei, Streit, Hoare / Salonen (November-December)
Janacek+Dostoevsky+Salonen+Mattei = must-see+great press+empty seats

Il Trittico
Racette, Lucic, Blythe, Corbelli, Antonenko / Ranzani (November-December)
Racette, Lucic, Blythe, Corbelli, Licitra / Ranzani (December)
Patricia Racette stars in all three operas in Puccini's triptych, and -- with Stephanie Blythe, who stole the show last time -- may finally bring Jack O'Brien's literal production to life. Very promising, though debuting conductor Stefano Ranzani is unknown to me.

Tales of Hoffmann (new Bartlett Sher production)
Calleja, Held, Lindsey, Kim, Netrebko, Gubanova / Levine (December, including first night Gala, and January)
Calleja, Held, Lindsey, Kim, Netrebko, Gubanova / Keenan (December)
Early rumors had Anna Netrebko attempting all the heroines in this, but she's wisely left high-coloratura Olympia to Kathleen Kim and mezzo-ish Giulietta to Ekaterina Gubanova.
Sher's first production at the Met wasn't so impressive, but perhaps he's learned from it. Obviously Levine's performances are the ones to see; his sciatica-induced cancellation drained the life out of an excellently cast (Shicoff, Swenson, Terfel, Mentzer) 2000 revival.
New: Unsurprisingly, originally-announced tenor Rolando Villazon isn't singing Hoffmann: the remarkable Joseph Calleja is. More surprisingly, Rene Pape and Elina Garanca (the latter now singing Carmen instead) aren't going to be in this production either, being now replaced by Alan Held and Kate Lindsey. Held has some big shoes to fill but the other changes are, I think, probably for the better (performance-wise, that is -- not box-office).

Elektra
Bullock, Voigt, Palmer, Schmidt, Nikitin / Luisi (December)
Luisi did well with Strauss' Helena, and he plus the excellent supporting cast should make much of the show whether or not debuting English soprano Susan Bullock crashes or triumphs in the name part -- and whether or not Voigt, who is no longer the creamy-voiced marvel of the 90s (as in the telecast with Behrens), can make Chrysothemis work in her new voice.
New: With Held tied up singing the four villains in Hoffmann, Evgeny Nikitin replaces him here as Orest.

Hansel and Gretel
Persson, Kirchschlager, Langridge, Plowright / Andrew Davis (December-January)
This is a pretty starry lineup for a kids' presentation (with attendant 11AM matinees).

Carmen (new Richard Eyre production, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon)
Garanča, Alagna, Frittoli, Kwiecien / Nézet-Séguin (New Year's Eve Gala through January)
Borodina, Jovanovich, Kovalevska, Kwiecien / Altinoglu (end of January-February)
Borodina, Jovanovich, Kovalevska, Rhodes / Altinoglu (February)
Gheorghiu, Kaufmann, Kovalevska, Kwiecien / Altinoglu (April-May)
Yes, Angela Gheorghiu's first Carmen attempt onstage anywhere. A better fit for her temperament than Micaëla, but a stretch for her voice. Barbara Frittoli sounded sufficiently poor in her 2007 Suor Angelica that I've wondered why she's still getting big engagements here. In the other cast, Olga Borodina can certainly sing Carmen but seemed bored in her last one: perhaps the new production -- and not injuring her foot -- will energize her a bit. 2007 Tucker-winning tenor Brandon Jovanovich makes his debut opposite, which should be interesting, and Kovalevska's Micaëla has already outshined Borodina once. Much will depend on the two debuting conductors.
New: Whoops! Gheorghiu's big Carmen debut won't happen until April, as she's decided she doesn't want to sing with her husband any more. Elina Garanca withdrew from Hoffmann to take up the title role, which is... interesting. We'll see the London reviews for her and Alagna this October.

Stiffelio
Cura, Marambio, Dobber, Ens / Domingo (January)
This obscure Verdi opera was only moderately interesting when Domingo was actually singing in it and James Levine conducted. Now, account for the mind-boggling gap between Levine and Domingo-as-conductor... A definite miss.

Simon Boccanegra
Domingo, Pieczonka, Giordani, Morris / Levine (January-February)
Domingo sings baritone! -- and not just any baritone part, but the great title role of this Verdi opera. Whether it works or not, it's an event -- though I'll be surprised and cheered if it's as good as the last revival.

Ariadne auf Naxos
Stemme, Ryan, Kim, Connolly / Petrenko (February)
Low-glamour but high-promise cast in a great opera and production. Kirill Petrenko's conducting last time was routine.
New: Out (as Zerbinetta) -- Aleksandra Kurzak, charming in last season's Rigoletto. In -- Kathleen Kim, who almost stole the show in Rusalka, and might well steal the show in Hoffmann earlier in the season.

La Fille du Régiment
Damrau, Florez, Palmer, Te Kanawa / Armiliato (February)
If you want to hear this Donizetti piece again, the singing here's bound to be good. Dame Kiri is in a non-singing role, however.

La Boheme
Netrebko, Beczala, Cabell, Finley / Armiliato (February-March)
Netrebko, Beczala, Swenson, Petean / Armiliato (March)
Will get a lot more press than this season's revival, but won't necessarily be as good. The role of Mimi suits Netrebko's current voice, though.

Attila (new Pierre Audi production)
Abdrazakov, Urmana, Vargas, Alvarez / Muti (February-March)
Abdrazakov, Urmana, Vargas, Alvarez / Armiliato (March)
This is not only conductor Riccardo Muti's Metropolitan Opera debut but the house premiere of this Verdi rarity. Don't miss it, and buy your tickets to Muti's performances early. Intense young tenor Russell Thomas has one performance (March 19) in place of Ramon Vargas -- both should be interesting.

The Nose (new William Kentridge production)
Szot, Geitz, Popov / Gergiev (March)
This is the Met premiere of this early Shostakovich piece, and the debut of all three principal singers as well as the production team. If Gergiev makes you nauseous these days, there is one performance (March 25) led by his fellow Mariinsky conductor Pavel Smelkov. Very interesting, though by no means a sure bet.

Hamlet (new production imported from Geneva)
Keenlyside, Dessay, Larmore, Morris, Spence / Langrée (March-April)
Another Natalie Dessay showpiece, with another Natalie Dessay mad scene. Who can resist?

La Traviata
Gheorghiu, Valenti, Hampson / Slatkin (end of March-April)
2002 Met Council Finals winner James Valenti finally makes his company debut as Alfredo. Gheorghiu's Violetta and Hampson's Germont are likely familiar, but by the time of this revival it will have been a dozen years since Leonard Slatkin conducted at the Met.

Armida (new Mary Zimmerman production)
Fleming, Brownlee, Ford, Zapata, Banks, van Rensburg / Frizza (April, including first night Gala, and May)
Fleming in her element -- Rossini's take on Tasso. Don't miss, and buy your tickets early.

Flying Dutchman
Uusitalo, Voigt, Gould / Ono (April-May)
See note on Tosca. Tenor Stephen Gould's debut is interesting, but this revival's likely a miss unless Uusitalo shows well in the Puccini.
New: Or unless he doesn't sing this either...

Lulu
Petersen, Lehman, von Otter, Morris / Levine (May)
The greatest, most gorgeous (particularly when Levine conducts it) modernist opera gets a surprisingly starry cast.