Review

Der Rosenkavalier in Munich: Die schöne Musi!

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The Marschallin seems like a role that the elegant, meticulous soprano Anja Harteros was born to sing. She finally did it at the Bayerische Staatsoper this season, and repeated it with the fabulous Octavian of Sophie Koch at their Festspiele this Saturday (the July “Festspiele” consists of a few new productions plus a retrospective of the season with most of the same casting, fancier audience members, fewer rehearsals, and higher prices–fun but a little unpredictable). While Otto Schenk’s production would benefit from a good fumigation and energy injection, the all-star cast made this worth it.

Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier. Bayerische Staatsoper/Münchner Operfestspiele, 7/23/2011. Production by Otto Schenk, conducted by Constantin Trinks with Anja Harteros (Marschallin), Sophie Koch (Octavian), Lucy Crowe (Sophie), Peter Rose (Ochs), Piotr Beczala (Tenor).

This Rosenkavalier is an Otto Schenk extravaganza, similar but more opulent than Vienna’s Schenk. This run was originally planned as a new production this season, but intendant Nikolaus Bachler decided to keep the Schenk at the last minute, supposedly a bone thrown to staging conservatives. While the sets and costumes are in fine physical shape, age is still a problem. Most seriously, the Personenregie has gaps: there are many points where the singers simply stand still while the music cries out for stage action. As the Marschallin would point out, you can’t stop time.

Visually, the cluttered aesthetic is not to my taste–the von Faninals seem to gunning for a record for the largest china collection outside the Hofburg. But the level of detail (such as the inclusion of visible and detailed antechambers behind the main set) is impressive if you like that kind of thing. The Act 3 inn is more convincingly seedy than some other productions’, though the action in the opening was not as clearly laid out as it could have been. If you want to see this production in action back in its glory days, such as they were, you can do so on this excellent DVD conducted by Carlos Kleiber with Gwyneth Jones as the Marschallin.

I can’t really comment on many of the acting details of this performance, because, as is often the case at the Nationaltheater, my view of the stage was hopelessly bad. I could see the set and, once in a while, the singers, but as for most of what they were doing beyond the big rote blocking action you get in a standard issue Rosenkavalier (which is what this was), I’m not too sure.

Late replacement conductor Constantin Trinks (GMD in Darmstadt) seems like a good find, particularly when you allow for the limited rehearsal time of these festival productions. It wasn’t the most precise Rosenkavalier I have ever heard, and both stage-orchestra coordination and the faster orchestral business were off at times. But the light spirit, indulgently slow ending, and general sense of shape and dramatic timing worked really well, with a clear path through a score that can meander. Balance was something of an issue in Act 1, when the orchestra overpowered the singers, but improved over the course of the evening.

Anja Harteros has a wonderful way with the text, with beautiful diction and wit, and a conversational musicality that sounds both natural and graceful. Her voice is a little smoky and grainy, in a good way that makes her sound unique, and her middle voice has the strength needed for this role. Most notable is the detail and musicality she puts into every phrase, which is particularly good for Straussian style. Once or twice she sounded studious, but she is already my pick for the Marschallin of today.

Sophie Koch is an experienced Octavian. Like Harteros, she tends towards the aristocratic side of her role, welcome after too many slap-happy, excessively hormonal productions. But she is still convincingly youthful and masculine, funny in Act 3 without being over-the-top, and sings with expansive, lustrous tone, only sometimes sounding a little thin on the very top notes (Octavian did, after all, start as a soprano role).

The rest of the cast was perhaps not quite their match, though Lucy Crowe’s Sophie was very good, sung with richer, fuller sound than the thin twitterers you sometimes get, and acted with confidence but never brattiness. Unfortunately the pitch of her high notes wavered occasionally. Peter Rose’s Ochs is one of the better ones out there, more bumpkin than lecher and sung with style and fluidity, but his voice is rather hollow at both top and bottom. Supporting roles were universally solid and well-rehearsed.

In a delightful bit of luxury casting, Piotr Beczala appeared and knocked the Italian Tenor aria out of the park. Sure, it’s a kitschy bit of music, but given such a luscious rendition, it’s the best two minutes of tenorial bliss you could ask for.

Despite the boring production (which I couldn’t see too well anyway), a festival-worthy performance.

Photos copyright Bayerische Staatsoper.

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Review

Elektra: Turban outfitters

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Despite having a cool-looking production for once, the Wiener Staatsoper’s photos have failed me again, hence the above. Everyone wears turbans, obviously, which is only fitting for an opera full of screaming divas. This iteration of Harry Kupfer’s production, with Janice Baird and Agnes Baltsa conducted by Peter Schneider is surprisingly not bad, which is not the same as saying that all of it is good, but you could do a lot worse.

Strauss, Elektra. Wiener Staatsoper, 3/24/2011. Production by Harry Kupfer (revival), conducted by Peter Schneider with Janice Baird (Elektra), Agnes Baltsa (Klytämnestra), Silvana Dussmann (Chrysothemis), Ain Anger (Orest), Michael Roider (Aegisth).

The Staatsoper actually does provide a washed-out photo of this production, but it doesn’t do the unit set justice:

It looks pretty good! A giant statue, presumably of Agamemnon, is seen from the knees down, its toppled head hanging out off to the side. (I think the Met Elektra also involves a toppled statue?) It is stark, the lighting is starker. We open with some slaughtering and business with meat-hooks, but for the most part the production as seen now is totally conventional. Only the absence of an ax in the finale is unusual. The costumes mix a variety of periods: generic Middle Eastern, futuristic sci-fi, and a little fin-de-siècle with some epaulets and a sequined gown for Klytämnestra. The raked stage and darkness reminds me of the Staatsoper’s recent new Mozart productions... oh, the sets and lights for both were designed by Hans Schavernoch. Figures.

I was surprised how much this look helped things feel fresh, because interpretively there isn’t much going on and the Personenregie was not any better than your typical revival of a 1965 Boleslaw Barlog production. Kupfer is a good director of singers and I think it’s fair to guess that this production originally succeeded on this count. But any trace of that has disappeared in this 55th performance of the production. The blocking was a typically bad case of unmotivated milling around, with a few stretches that were horribly static. There’s a lot of pushing and knocking people to the floor. That fits this opera, but when done unconvincingly it just looks dumb.

But there were musical rewards. Peter Schneider can usually be counted on for a better-than-average workmanlike performance, but he was having a good night, and got the orchestra to turn in an exciting, churning, tense evening that occasionally made it to (sorry) Elektra-fying. It was all very loud and often drowned out the singers, who were constantly struggling to be heard, but come on, it’s Elektra. If there’s ever an opera where the orchestra deserves to be too loud, it’s this one. Shame that the Staatsoper seems to have cast a bevy of Mozart singers as the serving maids–they were overpowered almost completely. We can only hope these ladies aren’t also all going to be valkyries in a few weeks.

Janice Baird’s angular profile looks perfect as Elektra, but her performance had a lot of ups and downs. She took almost the entire opening monologue to warm up, sounding cloudy and underpowered (OK, against the Orchestra of Doom), but over the course of the opera her voice became more steely and cutting. A good effort, overall. Theatrically, a few well-observed acting details stuck out, but for the most part she was too static, particularly in the opening monologue where she was confined to a foot of the giant statue, gripping some hanging ropes. She and Orest cannot free themselves from these ropes attached to Agamemnon’s statue! The symbolism, it overwhelms.

Silvana Dussmann was new to me and a pleasant surprise as Chrysothemis, singing with a passionate outpouring of sound in a very nice full jugendlich-dramatische soprano. Her middle voice is her strongest feature, and sometimes her top notes would turn shrill and thin.

Agnes Baltsa is older than dirt (though she isn’t admitting it in her headshot in the program), and was never really a Klytämnestra voice if you ask me. There are some holes in her range and the tone is threadbare and has an unpleasant nasal edge. But what she lacks in voice she achieves in vicious dramatic histrionics, and she can sing the part, just not terribly well. I preferred Felicity Palmer at the Met last year in this role, while I would choose both Baird and Dussmann over their New York counterparts Bullock and Voigt.

Ain Anger was an exceptionally good Orest, singing with warm tone and excellent attention to the text. I am now looking forward to hearing him as Hunding in Walküre. Michael Roider was a sufficiently abrasive Aegisth, but sounded rather better than most do in this role. The supporting folks struggled against the orchestra with varying degrees of success–as all the leads did throughout the evening.

After that mediocre Salome I had low expectations for this one, but it is in fact totally worth seeing.

(Also, let’s have a moment for the patron opera of standees everywhere: “Ich kann nicht sitzen.”)

All my bows photos were blurry this time but I did get this shot of the surtitles’ odd closing. After Elektra? Really?

Production photo copyright Wiener Staatsoper.

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Review

Ariadne auf Naxos: I’m voting you off the island

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Around a year ago, I saw Ariadne auf Naxos at the Met, a performance that, while not bad, was mostly worth seeing for Nina Stemme’s powerful Ariadne. The city might have changed in the meantime, but the Ariadne has not. One Nina Stemme as Ariadne in the midst of much mediocrity, coming right up… this time courtesy of the Wiener Staatsoper.

Strauss-Hofmannsthal, Ariadne auf Naxos. Wiener Staatsoper, 3/7/2011. Production by Filippo Sanjust, conducted by Michel Güttler with Nina Stemme (Ariadne), Julia Novikova (Zerbinetta), Stepanie Houtzeel (Der Komponist), Burkhard Fritz (Bacchus), Wolfgang Bankl (Ein Musiklehrer), Alexander Pereira (Der Haushofmeister), Daniel Schmutzhard (Harlekin)

Perhaps the large number of debuts kept everyone on their toes, but this was tidy and engaged, as Staatsoper rep shows go. But other than La Stemme, there’s nothing I will remember about it.

You may have seen Filippo Sanjust’s production on this 1978 DVD. As it is today, it’s fine if dull, attractive but neither witty nor transcendent. The Prologue set is the hideous desert island set seen from the back, and it’s on the cavernous side for such intimate music. The blocking was not bad, but compared to Harry Kupfer’s weird Theater an der Wien production of last October it lacked humor and detail. The lighting is crepuscular, and disconcertingly dark. The mood seems to call for something brighter. The Opera takes place on an elegant Greek amphitheater-style desert island. If we want to be literal, I can point out that the libretto makes it clear that the Richest Man in Vienna does not have a private theater like the one shown here. Just saying that these productions that are seen as ultra-traditional take liberties with the letter of the libretto too.

Conductor Michel Güttler, a late substitute for ailing Jeffrey Tate, was not debuting. But there were issues of coordination, balance, a lack of differentiation, and the whole thing was flat.

Nina Stemme sang Ariadne with powerful, beautiful tone (a little heavy on the vibrato), including wonderful low notes. And she is a fantastic actress, strangely making Ariadne into the only character I cared about in the entire performance (as you can guess, I usually find her a bore). But this time around I doubted the suitability of this role to her at present; sometimes more flexibility would have been nice. I did get the feeling she could have eaten the orchestra for breakfast, though.

Julia Novikova was a poor Zerbinetta (in fact my third disappointing Zerbinetta in a row–and I am raising my opinion of the first, Kathleen Kim, with each successive effort). Her voice is simply far too small for this role in the Staatsoper, and lacks an incisive cutting quality. The higher notes projected more clearly, but were shrill and thin. Her stage business consisted of the matronly coquetry that was created for and should be the sole property of Edita Gruberova, this production’s Zerbinetta of record. With tiny, youthful, enthusiastic Novikova, the miniature straw hat, twirling of a ruffly umbrella, and literal hand gestures (waves, balancing scales) were like a 14-year old dressed up as her dowdy grandmother, and the effect was cloying.

Elsewhere, Stephanie Houtzeel seems to have Straussian style. But her voice, despite considerable volume, lacks substance and depth, all vibrato and no core. I’ve pretty much given up on hearing decent Bacchuses–Botha excepted–and Burkhard Fritz proved no exception, which muffled, underpowered tone. Some smaller roles were better, notably veteran Wolfgang Bankl’s clearly enunciated Musiklehrer and Staatsoper debutant Daniel Schmutzhard’s solid Harlekin. The Nymphs were a bit unblended. They and the Commedia folks hit their blocking marks well enough, but the stretch between Zerbinetta’s aria and Bacchus’s appearance felt interminable.

The presence of incoming Salzburger Festspiele intendant Alexander Pereira in the spoken role of the Haushofmeister was pure stunt casting. He’s no actor, but I actually enjoyed this part played without the usual insufferable archness. His delivery of the dictum that the comedy and tragedy would be combined was rather funny, clearly coming from a dumbass who has convinced himself that this is the best idea in the world.

Maybe I have overly high standards for this opera but I’m pretty sure that this one was not, for the most part, any good. Oh well, kam die neue Ariadne gegangen, hingegeben war ich nie stumm.

Several performances remain: 7, 9, 12 March.

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Review

Salome: Twilight of the vibratos

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Staatsoper rep night: Salome. Ancient production? Check. Underrehearsed staging? Check. Uneven singing? Check. Welcome back to the opera house where everything can go pretty much right but Salome can still come out bland. Camilla Nylund is an alright Salome, but I’m sure she’s better in other roles. Peter Schneider isn’t the best Strauss conductor out there, but you could do far worse. Unfortunately, this is an opera that requires a frisson from some source or another.

Strauss, Salome. Wiener Staatsoper, 2/2/2011. Production by Boleslaw Barlog (revival), conducted by Peter Schneider with Camilla Nylund (Salome), Tomasz Konieczny (Jochanaan), Wolfgang Schmidt (Herod), Iris Vermillion (Herodias), Marian Talaba (Narraboth).

Boleslaw Barlog’s production takes its visual inspiration from Klimt, but on this 196th performance there wasn’t much glitter left on Jürgen Rose’s sets. Gold floors are vaguely spotted with colored tiles, and generically Middle Eastern robes with mosaic bits are the clothing of choice. The photos here make it look rather nicer than it does in person, from the Galerie standing section it was just a brownish platform with some spots. The worn quality is less one of appropriate decay than simple drabness, and often there’s not enough color contrast to see what’s going on. I’m not sure what its angle was, if it ever had one in the first place. Something about the exotic as self, I am sure, whatevs. Of the Personenregie, today it is a site of park and bark.

Mystery Salome and Herod (not my cast)

Peter Schneider conducted a spotty rendition of the score. The orchestra obviously can play this piece very well, but I’m not convinced they were playing well together, and some moments worked while others were flat and unfocused. The character was somewhat soupily Romantic with Rosenkavalier tendencies, but not differentiated enough to give a decisive impression. It wasn’t bad, in fact much of the playing was quite good, but it had little shape or edge. Like the staging, it lacked intensity.

Camilla Nylund is a lyric Salome and was pushing for volume at many points. I would classify her as a Singer with Skills, not a bad thing but not an exciting one. She can be depended on to have thought through the role, give it the best she’s got, show good musical taste, and rarely make ugly sounds, but she isn’t going to get to Demented (see also: Adrianne Pieczonka). Her silvery soprano doesn’t have a particularly memorable timbre, and can get vibrato-heavy and strident at the top. Her characterization was well-acted but longing and girlish, at times almost fairy Salome, and I missed darker undertones. She deserves credit for doing her own dance all by herself, but it seemed something of a space-filler. Her most memorable moment was a creepy Sprechstimme “den Kopf des Jochanaan.”

Tomasz Konieczny was a hale and hearty, even a clean John the Baptist. He sounded healthy as well, with a metallic, noble sound that suited the part far better than his downright reputable looks and ordinary presence. The rest of the cast failed to inspire, though Iris Vermillion’s wobbly camp goddess Herodias was entertainingly over the top (sporting a glittery dress that I think we can call a harem Dirndl). Wolfgang Schmidt, after a painfully voiceless Aegisth in Elektra at the Met last season, turned up again to do the same for Herod. I know this isn’t a role where you expect beautiful singing, but there is a limit to how much hooting Sprechstimme one can be allowed characterization’s sake. Or vocal frailty’s sake, for that matter. Marian Talaba’s gargled Narraboth likewise did the evening no favors. The Nazarenes and Jews sang just fine, though the Jews carried on like dudes at Tevye callbacks at the First Presbyterian theater club, which made me a little uncomfortable.

To make Salome so competently unmemorable requires special talent, but the Wiener Staatsoper is a special place.

Photos copyright Wiener Staatsoper.

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Review

Der Rosenkavalier in Stuttgart: Ist ein Traum…

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The Marschallin of Stefan Herheim’s virtuosic Staatsoper Stuttgart Rosenkavalier is a sad woman with a lot on her mind. In her unconscious, she struggles between restraint and abandon, the ugliness of reality and the lush comfort of backwards-looking art. Backwards-looking art? Yes, this is a deconstructive production. But while Herheim doesn’t let Strauss off the hook for his sentimentality and conservatism, he also creates something with genuine beauty in the big moments and wit in the small ones. If it sounds overstuffed, well, it is, but so is the opera.

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Review

Der Rosenkavalier: Wie du warst, wie du bist

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While Otto Schenk’s Wiener Staatsoper Der Rosenkavalier have been spiffed up and the staging is showing alarming signs of rehearsal, a great Rosenkavalier still requires a great cast. While Adrianne Pieczonka’s Marschallin is very fine, neither she nor her less distinguished costars quite lit up the stage. With the exception of the excellent orchestra, this wouldn’t have rated above a solidly routine Rosenkavalier in most houses. In Vienna, a city that takes its Rosenkavalier almost as seriously as its Mozart, it ranks as a disappointment.

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Review

Ariadne auf Naxos at the Theater an der Wien: Art isn’t easy

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The bar has been raised for the richest man in Vienna: one must now have a space shuttle.  The rich (though not unseen) patron of Harry Kupfer’s new Theater an der Wien production of Ariadne auf Naxos holds his party in his private hangar.  He is not a man of taste or of restraint, and none of his guests have much interest in anything Ariadne is selling.  And Kupfer doesn’t seem to have a lot of faith in the transcendent power of art in modern times, either. This production had cool visuals, an amazingly sung Bacchus from Johan Botha, and an excellently staged Prologue, but for me it never really took off.  Maybe I’m just not cynical enough.

Strauss-Hofmannsthal, Ariadne auf Naxos.  Theater an der Wien, 14/10/10.  New production by Harry Kupfer, sets by Hans Schavernoch, costumes by Yan Tax lights by Hans Toelstede.  ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien conducted by Bertrand de Billy with Anne Schwanewilms (Ariadne), Mari Eriksmoen (Zerbinetta), Heidi Brunner (Komponist), Johan Botha (Bacchus), Nikolay Borchev (Harlekin), Jochen Schmeckenbecher (Musiklehrer)

This production sure is colorful.  Literally.  The female party guests get bright red and the commedia dell’arte characters look like they’ve been assaulted by someone wielding a confetti gun.  And the Glitter Fairy threw up on them, too.  The set isn’t large but its industrial look isn’t quite minimal or monochromatic either, and sometimes we have video projections too.  It looks awesome, but it’s very, very busy.  The tasteless desert island set is a small roped-off square in the middle of the hangar space, filled with broken-off statue bits of wings, I assume representing Ariadne’s condition but also the opera seria’s antiquated, museum-like place in a world of space shuttles and clutter.

The Prologue is really excellent.  It’s bustling without being too crowded or unfocused, it moves quickly all over the stage and establishes all the characters very quickly, including a Tenor with an affection for Zerbinetta.  Everything is modern, more or less, though the party guests do sport tall Baroque wigs.  The Composer’s black and white suit stands out among all the color, in the opera Ariadne and Bacchus will also wear black and white.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what this symbolizes.

The Opera features a lot of milling-about by the supernumerary party guests, who are considerably more interested in Zerbinetta than Ariadne.  Occasionally TVs showing stock reports appear.  Ariadne languishes on her broken wings almost unnoticed, her isolation becoming the abandoned state of high art in modern culture.  Bacchus, wearing a tux and waving a hanky, is the commodified form of culture for the masses, giving us effortless tenorial thrills and similarly uninterested in Ariadne–he ends up with Zerbinetta.  Ariadne, confusingly, ends up with Harlekin, joining the modern world at last.  I guess?

You can’t deny that Kupfer has a point of view, but I’m too much of an idealist, and I like Strauss’s music too much, to go along with it.  In this production, high culture doesn’t seem to be something worth saving.  While I can understand putting Ariadne in the background as an interpretive decision, it and the confusing finale undermine too much of the music without making a good point in return.  The party guests don’t give Ariadne a chance, but Kupfer doesn’t give her one either.  It’s easy to show superficial rich people ignoring culture, but what’s the point?  The guests appreciate Zerbinetta and company, of course, but the troupe’s antics are too sweet and harmless to have any kind of satiric bite in this context.

Musically, this was yet another production to show that the Theater an der Wien can for the most part stand up to the Staatsoper in quality–often by hiring many of the same people.  The ORF orchestra conducted by Bertrand de Billy got off to an uneven start but filled the theater in the Opera without ever being too loud (this theater is perfect for this opera in size, I believe Strauss actually pointed this out himself at one point).  Ensembles were excellent.  Anne Schwanewilms brought understated simplicity and sensitive lyric singing to Ariadne, but she, perhaps due to this production, lacked presence and her tone often turned harsh and metallic (though her volume was fine). 

Mari Eriksmoen was plucked out of obscurity to replace post-partum Diana Damrau as Zerbinetta.  She gave a competent account of the role with confidence, stamina, good diction, and good intonation, but the voice itself is small and colorless, and she didn’t even try the trill on the high D.  She does have great stage presence, though, and her modern, no-nonsense Zerbinetta never lapsed into cutesy.  I suspect the enormous applause at the end had something to do with the general Viennese fondness for women who are young and skinny, though.

Johan Botha was unquestionably the musical highlight of the evening with an effortlessly sung Bacchus with his usual clear, light but incredibly powerful tone.  He sounds like he could sing this in his sleep, and I can’t imagine anyone sounding better  in this role today.  He was a good sport embodying the multitude of tenor clichés handed to him by Kupfer–yes, including that hanky–but still, the guy can’t really act.  Interesting work-around, I suppose.

Heidi Brunner had a few excellent moments as the Komponist, singing some lovely rich high notes, but also some rough patches between registers and sloppy phrasing.  Jochem Schmeckenbecher was again (I saw him at the Met in February) a good if blustery Musiklehrer and Nikolay Borchev made a positive if fleeting impression as Harlekin.  The Nymphs et al. were all perfectly adequate.

I do like Zerbinetta’s yellow and green striped tights, though.  If you tell me where I can get some of those I would wear the heck out of them in all sorts of inappropriate contexts.  Proof that I really did choose the right blog name here, I guess.

I think I’m alone in not liking this one too much.  If you would like to read a more ecstatic review you can start with the two major Viennese newspapers, Der Standard and Die Presse.  There are three more performances, on October 17, 20, and 22.  It is not sold out and the standing room line was remarkably low key.

Photos copyright Werner Kmetitsch/Theater an der Wien
Next: Mass in B minor at the Musikverein with Harnoncourt tonight.

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Review

Der Rosenkavalier in Budapest: Heut’ oder morgen…

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Budapest’s magnificently gilded opera house is a relic from Hungary’s glory days, when the city was the joint seat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  But while it was a high point for a nation that considers itself very important (just check out the size of the Hungarian Parliament), the Dual Empire period was the beginning of the end for Habsburg power.  On the cusp of World War I, Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s Der Rosenkavalier would appear, a Habsburgian comedy in the same rococo guise as some parts of the opera house.   Rosenkavalier in Budapest, you might say, has baggage.

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Review

Ariadne auf Naxos: All hail Nina the Great

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Strauss-Hofmannsthal, Ariadne auf Naxos.  Metropolitan Opera, 2/4/2010.  Conducted by Kirill Petrenko with Nina Stemme (Ariadne), Kathleen Kim (Zerbinetta), Sarah Connolly (Komponist), Michael Hendrick (Bacchus).  Directed by Laurie Feldman, after a production by Elijah Moshinsky.

As you can probably guess, in the whole Ariadne v. Zerbinetta stakes of this opera, I’m usually on the side of the trilling, coloratura’d one.  But last night was not usual.  Nina Stemme as Ariadne was the only singer in this cast who makes things more than routine.  More than that, she is FANTASTIC.  New fan here.

The Vorspiel was disappointing.  The production is overstuffed with Merry Antics from Zerbinetta’s troupe, the stage cluttered.  Nothing zoomed or zinged or zipped, it just sort of ambled.  The orchestra seemed asleep at their scores.  (Though I think the chamber scoring of the whole score is a bad fit for the Met’s size, and I suspect a lot of detail was lost.)  Sarah Connolly’s Komponist was respectably and musically sung but without vocal breadth or glamour.  Jochem Schmeckenbecher a well-sung but dully characterized Music Teacher.

The Oper was better.  Petrenko seemed to connect with the orchestra, everything balanced out a bit more.  But the big thing is Nina Stemme’s Ariadne, which is magnificent.  She has a giant, darkish, round sound with bright top notes, very expressive and beautifully musically sung.  We so often make compromises with dramatic voices:

  • “The voice is huge but so ugly”
  • “Big sound, but no musicality at all.”
  • “Nicely sung but the voice isn’t really large enough”
  • Our favorite: “Decent singing but what an immobile lump onstage.”

Nina Stemme requires no compromises, she’s got pretty much everything.  Beautiful singing and a good, convincing actress to boot, with what this production gives her.   She was quite funny in the prologue, and magisterial in the Opera.*  Shame that Petrenko rushed through “Es gibt ein Reich,” I wish we could have heard those high notes held a bit longer–OK, I should go hear her as Brünnhilde or Isolde, I know.  I hope she will be singing more at the Met in the future, it’s really shameful that up to this point her only credit is a Senta from ten years ago.  (Side note to those who know me: She’s Swedish.  I continue to insist that everyone and everything that comes from Sweden is AWESOME.)

I enjoyed Kathleen Kim’s Olympia in Hoffmann last December very much, but as Zebinetta she didn’t offer Stemme much competition in the vocal compare-and-contrast.  She’s cute and has a sweet voice, but not nearly the magnitude of personality or variety of expressive colors to make Zerbinetta more than a caricature. Compared to Stemme’s march through rage, vulnerability, excitement, and more rage, she was just bubbly.  She’s in the songbird mode, and while Zerbinetta’s aria demands chirping it also requires a much wider emotional range, and quicker changes between moods.  The more lyrical parts of the role had little impact, particularly the Vorspiel duet with the Komponist.  There was some fudging in the last section of the big aria, and her trill isn’t particularly good, but it’s a marathon.

Tenor Lance Ryan was out sick, and unfortunately cover Michael Hendrick was sick too, but bravely went on.  Poor guy, it wasn’t the most pleasant experience for anyone concerned, but he sounds like he has a good voice, and I hope to hear him under more favorable circumstances at some point.

(Does anyone else think the nymphs’ lengthy hyping of Bacchus’s appearance is unfortunate?  Has there EVER been a hot heldentenor Bacchus?  Couldn’t they go on about how great his spirit is or something instead?  We can acknowledge that most heldentenors aren’t lookers and get on with it but the text just reminds us.  Repeatedly.)

The Rhinemaidens, I mean the nymphs, by the way, were beautifully sung, particularly Tamara Mumford’s Dryade.  This production has them rolling around on these high dress things, and the ladies have to emote solely with their elbows.  But prettily done.  Zerbinetta’s backup singers were unobjectionable, if occasionally inaudible.  I could have done with less mugging but I guess that’s the production’s fault.  I wasn’t sure if all the comic stuff was really supposed to be funny (which it wasn’t, but this business is hard to pull off) or intentionally dumb and annoying, in which case it wasn’t ridiculous enough.  I think the intentionally dumb angle belongs to another production, one with a more radical perspective on the piece.

The production, originally by Moshinsky, is traditional in the prologue and a little more fanciful in the opera.  It involves many of those sliding panels we know and hate from Bartlett Sher’s Met productions.  And who should the set designer be but Michael Yeargan, who designed Sher’s Barbiere and Hoffmann as well (he also designed the current Don Giovanni, which probably featured sliding panels but I’ve blocked that particular night at the Met from my memory).  Oh well, the panels slide endlessly to no clear end but the final tableau with Bacchus is nice, and the colors are beautiful (an attractive color scheme in a Met production! what a concept!). 

Confession: once I got the measure of things, secretly I was hoping for the other Ariadne, the one in which it rains, the fireworks are canceled, and the two shows are performed separately.  Then I could leave before Zerbinetta and her team came out.  But I landed in the wrong timeline where the plane DOES crash and got the usual crazy smashed-together one.  No Desmond in my timeline, very disappointing.  Also, aren’t we all glad Lost is back?  Three cheers for surreal desert islands.

Next!: I’m not sure!  The Met is quiet this month.  I may write about The Bridge Company’s Tempest shortly!  Otherwise, Attila!  Do you know Pierre Audi?  If you do, you will know why I am very intrigued to see this!

*However, I didn’t like how the production has Ariadne drop back into the persona of the Prima Donna from the Prologue when Zerbinetta first enters.  The Opera is something much more interesting than just an extrapolation of the Prologue’s events, and going back into the Prologue mode breaks the mood.

Video Bonus: Nina Stemme sings the Liebstod

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