The Metropolitan Opera / Recensies

MARVIN DAVID LEVY may have lost the gamble he took on the proposition that Eugene O'Neill's "Mourning Becomes Electra" could be successfully made into an opera, but in putting the results on its stage the Metropolitan has found a composer who should have a productive part in its future. This is no paradox at all but a conclusion based on two simple facts that emerged from its first performance anywhere: the magnitude of the problem Levy confronted at thirty-four and the competence, rising at some moments to distinction and beauty, of the results he has achieved in his first try at a full-length opera. Magnitude is, indeed, a feeble word to suggest the order of undertaking required to present in three acts what O'Neill set forth in thirteen - the corrupt core of the Mannons of Massachusetts, whose family tree was afflicted by a blight which spread through every limb and branch of it. One by one, the offshoots crumble and die. The analogy ceases there, for in no instance are the four deaths a result of nature's will. They are, rather, induced by a series of man- and woman-made circumstances which O'Neill shaped to the symbols and values of Aeschylus's "The Oresteia." The parallels extend from Ezra Mannon (Agamemnon) and Christine (Clytemnestra) to Lavinia (Electra) and Orin ( Orestes). The solution proposed by librettist Henry Butler and participated in by sundry others (including, no doubt, the Greek director Michael Cacoyannis, whose staging is a model of concision and purpose) is to convert each of O'Neill's plays into an act of the opera. Few lines survive as O'Neill wrote them, but further to the problematic point is that the action moves so swiftly that tragedy follows upon tragedy in terms of minutes rather than stage hours or chronological days. There is hardly a strange interlude of lightness or gaiety to suggest that the Mannons had anything on their minds other than aggressions and antagonisms. The mirror image of Levy presented in his score is oddly inverted. His real gift, without doubt, is a lyric one, the kind of singing impulse that defines the truly gifted. It becomes conspicuous in Act II when Orin, returned from the Civil War, soliloquizes over his dead father (poisoned by his wife) with the words, "How death becomes the Mannons!" But the nature of the aggressions and antagonism launched in Act I - such as father-love, mother-hatred - demand a constant tightening of dramatic tensions at which Levy is much less adept. It is done with conscience and care but not, to my taste, with real spine-tingling (or, to reverse the image, gut-gripping) intensity. Recurrently in the act and a half that follows Orin's expression, the latent warmth of lyric feeling is fanned from a flicker to a glow, as in the beautifully composed quartet, in which the mother and her lover are spied upon by her son and daughter aboard a clipper ship in Boston harbor. Unlike such classic quartets as those of "Rigoletto" and "La Bohème" in which duets in opposition are combined in a quartet, this one amounts to separate soliloquies musically reconciled. It is brilliantly written and sumptuously sung by the work's principals. The pace of rapidly unfolding happenings, however, calls ever and again for verbal exposition through song-speech over orchestral commentary. This is, at best, a difficult kind of expression to make interesting and all but impossible for a composer with the experience perimeter of Levy. In Act I, for example (it was rewritten three times), much of his effort is concentrated on finding a solution to this problem. It tends to be over-explosive, heavy with percussion, more sound really than fury. Levy has a natural feeling for the theater which enables him to set a suitable pace for the open*ing dialogue, but the skips and leaps and octave jumps lose their effect after awhile. As he gets closer to the heart of the problem, however - which is to say, to the hearts of his characters - more and more of the commitment gets into the singing line. In Act III this rises to considerable distinction. This may be, at bottom, because it is in Act III that the drama settles down to an exposition of Lavinia and her urges -psychological as well as sexual-and the part they play in the decaying roots of the Mannon family tree. Lavinia clearly is the character who means the most to Levy, which is as it should be. She is the Electra whom mourning becomes. That the composer is acutely aware of this and, finally, makes her the best realized of his characters is perhaps the soundest reason to regard his operatic future with confidence rather than merely hope. Stylistically, the score moves freely in what is likely to be called a conservatively contemporary idiom but which strikes me as a reasoned outgrowth of the subject matter. Verbal values are not so steadily well reasoned, but Levy has the good judgment to make clarity paramount when a statement indispensable to the drama is involved. Sometimes an echo of "Salome" or "Elektra" intrudes, but a composer who can invent a blending of electrified guitar and harp figurations (to support a little arioso charmingly delivered by Lilian Sukis) hardly needs rely on predecessors. Occasionally Levy repeats such a formulation as soprano voice echoed by oboe, or the baritone line supported by cellos, but this is well within the range of the expectable in a first effort. The substantial fact of Levy's fledgling flight is that, for all the burden his self-chosen subject puts upon him, he is capable of developing the impetus to make it more than momentarily airborne. This related more than a little to such additional motive power as Cacoyannis's direction and the decor of Boris Aronson. The latter, in particular, has used the resources of the new Met stage with practiced theatrical skill to give fluidity and atmosphere to the scenes and their changes (the longer ones clearly outran Levy's ability to sustain an instrumental interlude). Within this frame Cacoyannis has developed a scheme of action that strips the participants of commonplace operatic attitudes and gesture in favor of an economic, naturalistic action which would be absorbing were there no musical context. The latter, however, has been shaped to a kind of cloak upon the body of the visual pattern by Zubin Mehta, whose conducting far exceeded anything he has previously done at the Metropolitan. In intelligence, concentration, and productivity, it earns the high compliment of suggesting what the late Dimitri Mitropoulos might have done. Of the essence in the final outcome is the finely matched group of performers he had to work with. Included were two new to this stage: the Ameircan-born Evelyn Lear, who vivified the dilemmas of Lavinia in a consistently credible way vocally and with absorbing dramatic power (considering that she is, physically, somewhat slight for the best pictorial advantage); and the Australian-born Marie Collier, who gave Christine the exact kind of hard exterior over a lingering suggestion of physical attractiveness to make her actions believable. Both women have vocal instruments of uncommon beauty and responsiveness, and when they sang together it was an enriching experience. Miss Sukis in the smallish role of Helen, gave promise of finer things to come. Of the men, John Macurdy was excellent in the relatively brief role of the first Mannon (Ezra) to expire, Sherrill Milnes sang well but acted rather stiffly as the Adam Brant who fed the flame of Christine's desire, and John Reardon proved the wisdom of converting the part of Orin from tenor (as it was first written) to baritone with an affecting kind of pliance (vocally) and vacillation (dramatically). Ron Botcher had just the eager air to suggest the Peter who was spared the fate of becoming Lavinia's husband, and Raymond Milchalski's Jed was servile in action but masterful in sound. That the Metropolitan could put forth such an effort as conclusion to a first season at Lincoln Center which included the complex "Frau ohne Schatten," the colorful "Lohengrin," the potent "Peter Grimes" and the imaginative "Zauberflöte" is a testimonial to the will and determination of Rudolf Bing who organized it.

Act II a gigantic Sphinx spins a curious route on the stage, disclosing at one time the love nest of Antony and Cleopatra, at another the slain after Antony loses the battle to Caesar, and still again the scene of Antony's falling on his sword. Thus we have the steely unrealistic settings in anachronistic contrast to Mr. Zeffirelli's superbly realistic costumes. Yet the whole thing adds up to an impressive total - a kind of latter-day "Aida," if you will. (There's even something of a grand march, with Caesar astride a white charger.) Mr. Barber's score for "Antony and Cleopatra" - like that of his "Vanessa" - is strongly based on the Romantic period. One might label it "Egyptological modern' with a slight American accent; some of the harmonies splay out in open position, typical of the American sound.

Review of Peter Goodman in Newsday: "Parade" arrived last night at the Metropolitan Opera, before a gala audience that outshone many recent [first] nights. From first to last, it was a most unusual and rewarding evening of music. The program gathered three theater works whose main connection was that they were all 20th Century French pieces, rather loosely connected on stage by the continuous presence of a band of choristers and dancers all dressed in green with high green hats. In addition Harlequin, danced by Gary Chryst in "Parade," the [first] ballet, reappeared at the end of "L'Enfant et les Sortileges," the concluding opera. All three were being performed at the Met for the first time. It certainly will not be the last, for the evening was basically delightful. "Parade," a ballet newly choreographed by Grey Veredon to music of Erik Satie, opened the show. It is reviewed elsewhere on this page. The second work is Francis Poulenc's absurd little opera "Les Mamelles de Tiresias" ("Tiresias' Breasts"), composed after World War II to a poem of Guillaume Apolinaire written in 1903. After intermission, the final work was Maurice Ravel's fantasy "L"Enfant et les Sortileges" ("The Bewitched Child") written to a script by Colette and begun just after World War I. 'Tiresias" is a curious proto-feminist fable about a woman (engagingly sung by Catherine Malfitano) who, tired of being bossed by men, throws off her breasts, grows a beard and goes off to live her own life. After some indecision, her husband decides he can have children, too, and has several thousand all in one day, to the astonishment and admiration of the townspeople. Finally, the woman returns to her husband, and they choose to have children together. The ostensible moral of this strange little story is that everyone should have as many children as they can. The play premiered in 1917 in France, when the nation was being bled dry of people by the war. Poulenc set it to music in 1947, after a second terrible war. But the work is basically too full of buffoonery to make a serious case. "L'Enfant" is a psychological symbolist work about a naughty little boy (Hilda Harris) who brakes all the furniture and crockery in a temper tantrum, then is terrified and finally humanized when first the furniture comes to life and then the animals berate him for his thoughtlessness. The music is superlatively lovely, full of miraculous effects including a chorus of frogs and insects that delightfully creates the world living in the child's garden. The entire evening showed the sort of ensemble work among everyone from producer and conductor down to the last chorister that is opera at its best. The sets, painted by Hockney in his stage debut, were glorious. For "Tiresias" he made a green, red, white and blue painting of a Riviera town that seemed drenched in the bright Mediterranean light. "L'Enfant" used two simple but potent painted sets, the last an awesome, throbbing red and blue magical forest which evoked perfectly a mysterious animal and vegetable world. The whole evening made for a usually enchanting, though occasionally slow, amalgam, devoid of much depth or meaning but full of rather chic fun. The casts were huge, and it is difficult to single out one or two prime performers. Malfitano warmed up quickly and then sang and moved beautifully. In fact, the singers did so much dancing in "Tiresias" it began to resemble a musical. Not to mention the four singers who suddenly jumped up from box seats in the second tier to join the action. "L'Enfant" was handled differently. No one on stage except the boy and the green animal chorus did any singing - that as handled by more greenies and some in the party-colored costumes on either side of the stage. The stage was peopled by dancers and children, playing cats, frogs, a clock, furniture, a teapot and teacup, a mathematician, a princess, and so on. Harris was first sulky, then frightened and finally compassionate as the boy. Manuel Rosenthal, who conducted the first performance of "L'Enfant" in 1937, was on the podium last night and his interoperation, soft rather than sharp, was as delicious as pure Northern lake water. Producer John Dexter is to be congratulated for the way he gently managed to tie together all three works.

Thomson-Stein Work Retains Its Charms It was Virgil Thomson's "Four Saints in Three Acts" at the Forum on Thursday night, as the second Mini-Met bill. St. Therese I and St. Therese II made their innocent appearances; Betty Allen, the Commère sang and acted with a mean twinkle in her eye, and St. Ignatius Loyola finally got around to "Pigeons on the grass, alas," to the vast enjoyment of the audience in the little theater. This is the Thomson opera to the Gertrude Stein libretto. It had its first staged presentation in 1934, and Virgil Thomson was suddenly a famous man. "Four Saints in Three Acts" was wonderful camp then, and is wonderful camp now, and the campiest thing about it is its harmonic language. The Bartóks and Prokofievs and Hindemiths and Coplands of the day showed their modernism through a screen of dissonance. That was the accepted avant-garde style. Along came Mr. Thomson, who decided to be avant-garde in reverse. He composed a white-key opera out of Satie; an American hymn-tune, folk-song opera with more plagal cadences than can be found in a church in a year of Sundays; an opera with hardly a dissonance. And yet it was "modern." It still retains its charm. "Four Saints," like "The Mother of Us All" occupies a special place in the history of opera. It may be precious, it may be overcute, but it has a peculiar sweetness and innocence. It means everything and it means nothing. The listener is awash in a sea of word and phrase associations; is exasperated by the repetitions the same time he is enchanted; can be irritated by the word play because he cannot make up his mind whether it is profound or bogus. And yet the damn thing works. The music is affectionate and playful, and there is nothing remotely like it in opera. Only Mr. Thomson could have gotten away with this sophisticated baby talk; he always knew how to tease and to create outrageous paradoxes. In a crazy kind of way, "Four Saints in Three Acts" is more daring than the Prokofiev operas and the Bartók concertos - and that is part of the Thomson paradox. It is also regretfully true that without Gertrude Stein his music was nothing. As in the [inaugural] Ohana Purcell bill last Monday, the orchestra was on a balcony overlooking the stage, and the singers kept in contact with the conductor, Roland Gagnon, through closed-circuit television cameras scattered around. Ming Cho Lee designed the sets. They were minimal. Costumes were no problem; saints are frocked. Alvin Ailey staged the work and provided the dances---Martha Grahamish dances, modest and simple. Everybody in the cast could be applauded. The young singers, white and black (the 1934 original was all black), showed clear voices and impeccable diction (the diction with a huge assist from Mr. Thomson's idiomatic settings). Betty Allen, the one veteran in the cast, acted the Commère with a kind of surprised innocence and repressed fun; she was marvelous. When is she not? Her partner as the Compère, Benjamin Matthews, also enjoyed himself with his deadpan delivery and resonant voice. The principal singers were Clamma Dale and Hilda Harris as the Therese pair, and Arthur Thompson as St. Ignatius. All were fine - the two young women with their clear, ringing sopranos; Mr. Thompson with his big, mellow baritone. Pleasant singing also was provided by David Britton as St. Stephen, Barbara Hendricks as St. Settlement, Walter Richardson as St. Plan and Nancy Szabo as St. Sarah. Mr. Gagnon conducted with a fine feel for the idiom, and a few more performances will see some of the ensemble problems worked out. Mr. Thomson was present, and when he went on stage there was a standing ovation. And, by extension, the bravos also were for the Mini-Met.

Is this music from the muse that nurtured "Manon?" Can all that exotic, neo-Straussian richness be from the man most people tend to dismiss after "Manon?" One does not emerge from "Esclarmonde" humming a tune, nor do any principals have a major, show-stopping aria, but the sense of unity, of opera as a totality - not to mention a melodic-atmospheric scene painting of surprising vividness - must make us reconsider the composer. Bonynge melds, and blends the sounds perfectly. He has a magnificent cast to help him out.

The Metropolitan Opera, which has been under increasing fire for lack of adventurousness in programming and increasing mediocrity in its casts, unveiled bold improvement in both areas Monday night. The company mounted a new double bill, joining Bartok's two-character drama, "Bluebeard's Castle," not seen at the Met since 1975, with its premiere performance of Schoenberg's monodrama, "Erwartung" ("Expectation"). Dating from 1911 and 1909 respectively, these are two difficult, grim, unusually challenging works, powerful examples of the wealth of music created from the turn of the 20th Century to the beginning of World War I. It's hard to imagine a company such as the Met presenting these works without an extraordinarily important cast, and so it was: Jessye Norman sang the unnamed woman of "Erwartung" and Judith in the Bartok, opposite Samuel Ramey. Musically and dramatically, the result was all that one could hope: tremendous, expressive vocalism in the service of art, not mere display. "Bluebeard's Castle" is the more substantial of the two in length and comprehensibility. A setting of the Perrault fairy tale by Bela Balazs (here performed in Charles Kallman's appropriate English translation), it was written in 1911 but not performed until 1918. Balazs and Bartok filled their opera, about an insatiably curious woman and a grimly secretive man, with undercurrents arising from the newly emergent work of Freud. Bartok's music, already steeped in the scales and harmonies of Eastern European folk music, may have been alien to the ears of his contemporaries. But now, more than 70 years later, it is exceptionally expressive and flexible, eminently capable of providing aural blueprints for the tormented minds of the two characters. And Norman and Ramey, each in wonderful voice and unusual clarity of diction and performance, enacted the tale with riveting strength. "Erwartung" is a more difficult work to convey successfully - particularly when sung in German after the Bartok's English. Marie Pappenheim's libretto is an enigmatic, elliptic narration by a woman who searches for her lover in a dark wood. Full of dread and anxiety, she finds his corpse but it is not clear whether she herself murdered him. Schoenberg's music, not yet 12-tone, is still highly compressed, alternating between jagged hysteria and a sickly lyricism. Norman, lurching and wavering across the stage, conveyed an incomprehensible terror and dread. Both productions were staged by Swedish director Goran Jarvefelt, Austrian set designer Hans Schavernoch, and Viennese costume designer Lore Haas, all making their Met debuts. Schavernoch placed the action of "Bluebeard's Castle" within a huge room with walls of shining gray marble squares. Bluebeard, first seen standing on a black podium, gradually shed cape, cloak, coat, even black leonine wig, becoming more vulnerable and animal as the work progressed. Judith wore a black and red cloak. Jarvefelt emphasized the sexual nature of the conflict: Bluebeard reluctantly giving up his secrets before Judith's increasingly domineering questioning, until finally she strips him bare - to one that she has lost her own freedom. "Erwartung" was within the same walls, this time with red-leaved trees and a stage floor covered with candles and on one side a grand piano with candelabra, a civilized world gone mad. Indeed, the music of the first 15 years of the century was prescient: It foretold a civilization that did go mad for the next 50 years. And here we were, in uncertain safety on the other side, looking at exceptional performances of the warnings

'Vanessa' Returns in Triumph Samuel Barber's "Vanessa" returned to the Metropolitan Saturday night. It was most welcome, for it made an even deeper impression than at the premiere seven years ago. This is music drama with score and story about equally balanced. In the turn of events that finally places Erika in the same position from which Vanessa emerges at the beginning of the opera, the tragedy is poignant. It underlines how "love never bears the image that we dream of" and may even make history repeat itself, From that point of view this is Erika's story though it pivots on Vanessa. What gives it substance is the deep emotional current sustained musically throughout the score. Its melancholy strain finds logical culmination in the heart-breaking quintet at the end, thereby unifying itself with the tragic irony of the situation. Barber has underscored the psychological distress with some hauntingly beautiful music. That the orchestra is as important as the singers indicates how contemporary the opera is. Barber has written symphonically, but his ability to write substantial vocal music creates a proper balance. Occasionally the orchestral counterpoint obscures the singing; occasionally the rich scoring calls for softer dynamics from the conductor. How expressively he presents emotional values orchestrally gives the work its status. No other American opera to date has quite achieved this kind of projection, "Vanessa" has earned the right to be heard again and again. It takes its place naturally in the tradition. Only the second act fell somewhat below the quality of the other two on this occasion. Rosalind Elias and Giorgio Tozzi repeated their roles, among the principals. Miss Elias so identifies herself with Erika that she has made this the performance of her career. In voice and action she was singularly convincing, making Erika's tragedy almost personal. Mr. Tozzi's genial impersonation of an old doctor contributes much to the family atmosphere. Appearing for the first time as the old Baroness, Blanche Thebom sustained the role well. As Vanessa, Mary Costa looked and acted better than she sang. A persistent tremolo and cloudy enunciation detracted from a fundamentally beautiful voice. At first, all this suggested nervousness, but matters of production and pitch raised questions that later performances may possibly answer. John Alexander's first Anatol confirmed his growing excellence as a leading tenor-actor. He conveyed the duplicity of the role successfully and added a human touch that it has not previously had. William Steinberg was chiefly responsible for having the opera so musically integrated. His insistence?on clean-cut playing clarified the score in many places; in fact, he sustained the melancholy strain admirably, tightening the emotional impact noticeably. Gian-Carlo Menotti has also tightened the stage action, but he has not quite solved the second act. Cecil Beaton's old-world setting remains pictorially effective. Mr. Barber was present to take final curtain bows. The applause stepped up in volume and in warmth on his appearance. And well it should, for 'Vanessa" is a fine work.

[...] it adds up to a simply delightful evening of pure light entertainment. A lot of this has to do with the production itself, which is gorgeous beyond dreams. But some of the credit must go to Mr. Menotti and his opera. All the things that are wrong with it just don't seem to matter. There comes a time when high esthetic principles must be thrown to the winds, and this, dear reader, is the time. But how seductive it all is! Some of the arias are perfectly beautiful; others, notably a patter song for Mr. Scattergood in the second act, are great good fun. There is a long septet for the principals in the first act this is wondrously intricate, and another in the last act that ravishes the ears. There is a zany "Royal Hunt" in the first act that should make Berlioz hide his head, and a wild cocktail party in the second act that makes a sort of synthesis out of the Marschallin's levee and the "Meistersinger" street fight. The cast is glorious. Roberta Peters trills and roulades her way right into our hearts. It should be added that the audience loved it all the way. When Mr. Menotti appeared at the final curtain the crowd erupted....

Earlier in the month, the Met had mounted its first-ever "I Lombardi," which I thought deserved a little better than the bad press it received. It is not news, after all, that the piece is dramatically incoherent and more than a little silly, with no character capable of development. But there is a great vulgar energy to it, fluid bandstand Verdi with a few knockout arias and splendid choruses. Levine in the pit communicated that energy with more gusto than has been his wont of late, and the chorus, now completely recovered under the direction of Raymond Hughes, was overwhelming. As the villain-turned-saint Pagano, Samuel Ramey had a fine stand-and-deliver part, and he stood and delivered. Hao Jiang Tian as his confused henchman had enough bass voice to deliver with him in their splendid duet. And the role of Oronte gave Luciano Pavarotti two high-class arias, a less classy duet and a famous trio to sing with the great precision that still marks his work. I find the voice now almost disconnected from the body, which appears to be in considerable pain, but that makes the accomplishment if anything more admirable. Mark Lamos, from a Hartford (Conn.) repertory theatre, making a Met debut as producer, flung a lot of crowds at us. John Conklin gave us many banners with red crosses and similar simple symbolism with images on the cyclorama and a minimum of built pieces. You can't blame them for the ludicrous scene in which the heroine hallucinates Luciano "lassù in cielo." In a sense, Lamos's direction claimed more for the work than is there, but it showed more imagination than most of what we have seen recently. Pat Collins as lighting designer was more aggressive than the Met's usual. Bruno Beccaria as chief crusader was consistently stentorian, gave little pleasure, but did no harm. The great problem was in the soprano role. Aprile Millo apparently sang badly on the [first] night, and cancelled on December 14. Her cover, who had always been planned for a later performance was Lauren Flanigan, noted with enthusiasm in these pages for her performance in the title role of Hugo Weisgall's "Esther" at its New York City Opera premiere - but then not noted at all in the cover cast of the Met's "Rusalka" because she seemed under some strain as the Foreign Princess. That phrase would not begin to measure her condition as Giselda. It is a cruelty to a promising young artist to place her in such a killer role - a killer not because the fioritura is so difficult, though it is, but because the sustained legato is so ungratefully placed by a composer who was still relatively inexperienced in writing for the voice.

”The French conductor Frédéric Chaslin led a lithe, aptly paced reading of the score and vividly illuminated the rapidly changing character of the music, from its moments of jaunty cheer to its sweepingly lyrical climaxes.”

The opera features very contemporary topics, from political instability and freedom to the contrasts between the old and new world and the clash of religions, symbolised by the encounter between Attila and the Pope. Such themes deeply influenced Miuccia Prada and Herzog & de Meuron who tackled them through their post-Apocalyptic costumes and sets: the tragic fate of the main characters and of Verdi’s anti-hero Attila is symbolised for example by the rubble and destruction that surrounds the main characters, by the juxtaposition of the forest to the ruins and the artificially green military lights that shine on the stage. The costumes contribute to make the opera vibrantly modern and more relevant to the times we are living in: Miuccia Prada’s designs comprise long distressed leather coats in a rusty brown and black palette that calls to mind Prada’s A/W 09 collection, tribal feathered cycling helmets and dresses in dusty sack-like fabrics that remind of the colour of the ruins surrounding the characters and reference Miu Miu’s Spring/Summer 09 designs that, fashionistas may remember, were covered in fraying holes as if the wearer caused them while running away from some sort of natural catastrophe.

David McVicar's six-year old production of Il trovatore has returned to the Metropolitan Opera House with a starry cast. It does its job well without adding any insights, but it is a model of clarity and mood compared with the Met’s previous staging. Updating the opera to the Spanish War of Independence does no harm and keeps the divisive bitterness at the forefront while the love-triangle issue remains the same. And Azucena is Azucena. Charles Edwards’ gloomy sets and Brigitte Reiffenstuel’s costumes bring to mind some of Goya’s darkest paintings – there’s no joy to be found in this joyless opera, and it’s very effective. The set rotates to give us a mud-grey castle wall with a staircase that, in itself, looks dangerous, a Gypsy outpost with huge, buff men swinging huge hammers, a dim cloister and finally, a dimmer dungeon. Everyone moves well despite the opera being an ideal example of “park and bark.” Happily, there is no barking going on. Remarkably, without an Italian in the cast, Verdi’s exact “tinta” and mid-career blood-and-thunder are beautifully expressed. At its center is the stunning Anna Netrebko as Leonora, now happily out of the lyric-coloratura roles in which her personality, rather than technique, shone. She no longer relies more on her glamour than on following and reproducing the score as it is written. Yes the trills don’t always work, but when they do they’re beauties, and her overall performance is committed and thrilling. The voice itself remains lush and beautiful. She acts up a storm – yearning, being frightened, peacefully entering a convent, almost taking marriage vows. And the big arias in the last act (she sings the cabaletta, “Tu vedrai,”), as well as the “Miserere” and the duet with the Count all come across with such star power and allure and with long, high, floated phrases that she takes one’s breath away. It is a great joy to watch a soprano living up to her capabilities, let alone her hype. A brilliant portrayal. Korean tenor Yonghoon Lee is Leonora’s handsome troubadour, Manrico. The voice has become something glorious – a dark hue in the middle with shining, secure high notes, including a pair of whopping high Cs in “Di quella pira.” His phrasing and attention to dynamics are unique in this opera – not since the young Pavarotti has the role been so well sung. Of course, Dolora Zajick’s Azucena still makes one tremble – who else dares to push chest voice up to an A flat? To make up for a falling off of some volume in mid voice (she is in her 60s), her sustained pianissimo singing is lovely. Her Azucena is wild, huge, schizoid and riveting; this was the 50th time Zajick has sung the role at the Met. Dmitri Hvorostovsky bowed out of the role of the Count after three performances for health reasons, and the little-known, young, Ukranian baritone Vitaliy Bilyy has taken his place. His only previous Met assignments have been in Russian opera, but he may be a true Verdi baritone. Without either the charisma or hair of his predecessor, his attractive, well-placed baritone handled the role and its long, legato lines handsomely. If he seemed a bit nervous and out of synch with the orchestra at the start of “Il balen,” he made up for it with the rest of the evening’s work. Štefan Kocán’s dark bass voice added a nasty touch to Ferrando’s storytelling and Maria Zifchak’s sympathetic Inez works well. Kudos to Marco Armiliato for holding the whole evening together and certainly helping to keep the Italian tradition at the forefront. He is considerate of the singers but fearless in rousing big playing from the stupendous Met orchestra and chorus.

The more one sees performances of Verdi’s Falstaff, the more strange it appears. Verdi’s last opera is not only atypical in his career for being only his second comedy (along with the early Un giorno di regno)out of more than two dozen total operas, it is far different in means than his main body of work. The opera is mostly dialogue and ensembles, there is barely a signature Verdi aria, and even that is incomplete.

In the role of Butterfly, Hui He made a splendid entrance with Act one’s “ancora un passo,” flanked by her proceeding relatives and their eye-catching, traditional costumes. The soprano’s youthful tones carried wonderfully through the excited, legato phrases which blossomed into a soaring B-flat conclusion. Her infatuation lent itself to her flirtatious lines with Pinkerton, as she revealed her conversion to Christianity and willingness to leave her family, framing these as loving sacrifices. The character’s volatile emotions were expertly captured by Hui He throughout her time onstage, with her sensitivity to the words of others able to drive extended passages of suspicious or romantic fervor. This was powerfully heard in her Act two aria “Un bel di vedremo,” where her delicate passion quickly swept her up into a sonorous reverie, finishing as she demurred and closed the screen door as if to give herself a reprieve from the emotional excess. After the truth of Pinkerton’s return is made clear to her in Act three, Hui He’s utterly crushed lines were highly gripping as she readied for her suicide; her final aria “Tu? Tu? Piccolo iddio” was a thing of ruinous beauty as her grieving farewell to her child swelled to tremendous vocal heights.

Villazón relied on his acting ability Tuesday while singing clearly and comfortably enough in a lower range. He was charming in scenes with the petite, bright-toned Ashley Emerson as old-crone-turned-cutie Papagena.

Nicky Spence rings out like a heroic peal of bells as Siegmund. Emma Bell’s Sieglinde, in jeans and a tee-shirt, was the abused wife from The 39 Steps, welcoming a stranger (here with an industrial-sized jerry of water). Like Brünnhilde, a decent woman surrounded by vile men. The siblings work well together, despite schematic direction which initially has them moving like the figures in a German weather house.

Simon Stone delivers a visually stunning and conceptually arresting production of Donizetti’s enduring 1835 opera." Tthe singing across the cast was stellar. Camarena lent Edgardo a sweetness and softness that only made his heartache sting more sharply in his showstopping final aria. The Polish baritone Artur Ruciński made a delightfully detestable Enrico, his wood-paneled office littered with overdue bills a perfect cage for the wounded animal of his voice and bass Matthew Rose embodied one of the finest Raimondos I’ve heard, the authority of his voice routinely softened by a deep and conflicted compassion." "Sierra’s Lucia was fiery and finessed — and with the heavy reliance on close-ups and seemingly candid moments stolen through the camera, she proved herself an arresting actress, too. If the measure of any Lucia is truly the “mad scene,” Sierra truly rose to the occasion

While watching “Porgy And Bess” from high in the cheap seats, the pop songs fit in and the mix of folk, spirituals and pop are completely unique, and the spirituals have never sounded better. And it is the spirituals that push the production into the third and best one I’ve seen, and, probably the best of all times. Serena, the soprano Latonia Moore’s, “My Man’s Gone Now,” was beyond being heartbreaking, it was also as an indictment of poverty and how one can’t even grieve in peace. Serena’s husband is killed by Crown (Alfred Walker) and unless she can raise $25 to bury him, his body will be given to hospitals to be cut apart and studied. I’ve heard Ella Fitzgerald’s “My Man Is Gone” and I’ve heard Latonia Moore’s keening, distraught recent recording of the same production released December, 2019. But watching Moore’s devastating performance in person is an experience of a lifetime. I live in a small apartment building, six apartments on a floor, and I heard a man sshout in horror a couple of evenings ago, and discovered later his mother had just died, “she has no pulse,” he screamed, and then a lot of commotion and then nothing. In his voice, I could hear the horror of fresh death, it is something that can’t be faked, and it is something Moore manages to add to her voice, not just a wide ranged smooth from sky high wails to low down growls of ineluctable horror, but the sound we make when we discover someone we love has just died. It stopped the show and was the highlight of the evening.

Ana María Martínez artful restraint was matched by those around her, including the conductor Karel Mark Chichon, who made his company debut with a performance that kept the drama flowing inexorably forward.

Bliss deftly wielded his silky tenor through Ferrando’s more touching scenes; faced with Fiordiligi’s initial refusal and Dorabella’s unfaithfulness, his cavatina “Tradito, schernito,” rang with a fine, crestfallen timbre. This seeming defeat tinged his later duet with Car, “Fra gli amplessi,” with a desperate passion that was hard to resist, as heard from the beckoning caress he placed on the phrase “In me alone you’ll find husband, lover, and more if you wish.”