NORTH AMERICA
Pressed for her views on a disappointing concert by the incomparable Giuditta Pasta, nineteenth-century diva Pauline Viardot likened Pasta's performance to da Vinci's Last Supper: "a wreck of a picture," she said, but still "the greatest picture in the world." Shuffling the terms may yield a fair assessment of Renée Fleming's Imogene in the Metropolitan Opera premiere of Bellini's Il Pirata: a great singer, but the evening was still something of a wreck.
Granted, the twenty-five-year-old composer's score probably has never been sung by a lovelier voice. Fleming's vocalism, at its best, was of awesome beauty: iridescent pianissimos, buttery tone and shipshape trills. W
ho today can match her singing for technical wizardry and sheer sumptuousness? At the same time, the "expressive" tics that have increasingly marred Fleming's performances were everywhere in evidence. She dug into Imogene's first recitative ("Sorgete!"), an expression of compassion, with the kind of ferocious glottal attacks that most sopranos would reserve for Abigaille's tirades in Nabucco. Her Act I cabaletta, taken at an implausibly gooey tempo, dissolved into a mass of heaving, overwrought phrases. And though Fleming's mad scene was one of the boldest, most accomplished pieces of singing one could hope to hear -- silken runs, perfectly executed diminuendos, gleaming high notes flung out with almost defiant abandon -- it was also oddly anticlimactic, too much of a piece with the scenery-chewing that had gone on since her entrance. In short, Fleming's over-the-top way with this music seemed at odds with the essential (and paradoxical) discipline of bel canto. That discipline is a kind of "straitjacketing," as Maria Callas put it, requiring clean attacks, flowing lines and unfussy handling of verbal and musical detail.
While Fleming has the technical wherewithal to excel in this repertory, the same cannot be said of her Gualtiero, Marcello Giordani. With his proud bearing and authentic Sicilian good looks, he seemed every inch the Byronesque outlaw, and he nailed Gualtiero's cruelly exposed high Cs and Ds, his ringing, brilliant tones setting the air in the theater atingle. How he made his way above the staff, though, was another matter entirely. Muscle, not morbidezza, is Giordani's strong suit. He managed some inspired singing (a meltingly beautiful mezza voce at "Pietosa al padre," for example, in the Act I duet with Imogene) and made the most of his character's flimsy dramatic substance. But there is a hardness to his tone that is ill-suited to Bellini's long, supple cantilena, and he sometimes barreled his way through the score, which cries out for finesse no less than for manly vigor.
The evening's one unqualified triumph belonged to baritone Dwayne Croft as Ernesto, Imogene's unloved, hard-hearted spouse. Croft sounded like a throwback to the Golden Age. His tone was round and smooth, his roulades flowed like oil, and his every phrase and gesture radiated aristocratic hauteur. Maria Zifchak, Tigran Martirossian and Garrett Sorenson sang their smaller roles effectively, and the Met Orchestra under Bruno Campanella played with more care than they usually muster for early-Ottocento opera.
The production team moved Pirata forward about 400 years from its original setting. (This is akin to setting La Traviata at the time of Star Trek.) In any event, John Conklin's tenebrous baroque sets, filled with billowing fabric and great slabs of lapis and malachite, made a fitting home for Bellini's brooding score, and Robert Perdziola's costumes (including ravishing vermilion and peacock-blue gowns for Fleming) dazzled the eye. John Copley's production was workmanlike, with moody lighting by Duane Schuler.
For years, critics and fans have debated who deserves to be known as the "fourth" tenor. In light of Juan Diego Flórez's performance in the Met revival of Rossini's La Cenerentola, opera-lovers might do well to rephrase the question, asking instead who the second tenor is.
Flórez was simply dazzling as Prince Ramiro, his lengthy, ornate Act II aria winning one of the longest and loudest ovations I have heard in years -- and this
in a theater that has largely (and inexplicably) opted out of the "Rossini Renaissance." The Peruvian tenor is in radiant vocal health, his tone compact, penetrating and evenly produced from bottom to top (and sounding much less reedy in the house than on disc). His enunciation is flawless, his runs and gruppetti crackle with energy, and he cuts a natty figure onstage. Quibbles? Comparing him with his predecessors in this production, one must admit that Flórez's "Pegno adorato e caro" wasn't quite the thing of gossamer and sighs that Raúl Giménez made of it, and the thrillingly full-bodied ring that Ramón Vargas brought to the scena's dizzying leaps is not within his vocal means. (The Met has done very well by Cenerentola since its company premiere in 1997.) Still, Flórez worked his own magic with the role. The care he lavished on every detail (the verbal caress on "una grazia" in the Act I duet with Angelina, the feather-light arpeggio on "su quel viso") drew murmurs of wonder from an audience whose uproarious response seemed to herald the arrival of a new hero in today's operatic pantheon.
The cast included another youthful marvel: bass John Relyea as Ramiro's tutor, Alidoro. Relyea doesn't have Flórez's flair for florid music: he smudged a few of the arduous, cascading lines in "Là del ciel" and seemed uncomfortable in the highest reaches of the role. What a joy, though, to revel in his luscious, ebony sound -- surely one of the most beautiful voices to be heard today -- and to witness his easy command of the stage and telling way with a sweep of the hand or a tilt of the head.
Other roles were capably sung. As Angelina, the winsome Sonia Ganassi rightly emphasized her character's pathos and seria dimensions, but she seemed out of sorts vocally, sharp (and occasionally inaudible) in the lower register, her fioritura "correct" but lacking sparkle and bounce. Simone Alaimo's familiar Don Magnifico was played a tad less broadly this time: his brush-off of Angelina in Act I was crueler and more menacing, with their reconciliation in the final scene all the more poignant for that. In between, he was as manic as ever, and his bass voice, while hardly glamorous, sounded bright and healthy throughout this grueling assignment. The wonderful Alessandro Corbelli reprised his deft, witty Dandini, his voice somewhat dryer than in years past, but his overall performance no less winning and masterful. Joyce Guyer and Patricia Risley were suitably irksome as Angelina's stepsisters.
Cesare Lievi's Magritte-inspired production has held up well -- indeed, in some respects has improved, lighter on the slapstick than in its initial runs. The only real disappointment came, surprisingly, from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, under Edoardo Müller, who turned in a flabby, uninspired performance, with sloppy playing from the winds and none of the effervescence or razor-sharp timing this Rossinian masterpiece demands.
M. LIGNANA ROSENBERG
The Met revival of Elektra (Sept. 25) brought back Otto Schenk's 1992 production, now under the care of Laurie Feldman. Deborah Polaski took charge of the title role, starting with her first monologue, in which she constructed a microcosm of the action to follow. Though not unusually powerful, her voice was firm and steady throughout, relentlessly focused on Elektra's single-minded aim to avenge her father's murder, developing along the way any means needed -- invocation, sarcasm, blandishment, evasiveness. One felt the soprano was never distracted for one moment from this focus, not even in her rapturous state after Orest's arrival, though her voice bloomed then into lyric warmth. With economical stage manner, she continually reminded the audience of Elektra's distracted mental state, whether wandering compulsively about or lapsing into cumbersome, dancelike movement. The wordless tension between her and Klytämnestra (Marjana Lipovsek), before their interview began, evoked a beast stalking its prey.
Lipovsek, in her Met debut, sought less caricature than vulnerability in the character, with a lieder-singer's insight for pointed words and shaped phrases. Comfortable, pliant, rather maternal in sound, the mezzo played up Klytämnestra's guilt-wracked, pathetic side, at which Elektra could aim her attack. Karita Mattila's Chrysothemis proved a stronger portrayal than one expects from this trapped, helpless character. Pacing her entrance scene with gradually built exaltation, Mattila summoned an urgent, soaring tone that showed emotional conviction behind the only one in this dysfunctional family with a grip on reality. Not only did this Chrysothemis want out of her situation, she knew where she wanted to go instead.
Not all of the Elektra orchestration is as taxing for the singers as the brass choir that underlines Elektra's first cries of "Agamemnon!," but much of it is threateningly noisy and complex. To create as level a playing field as possible, James Levine had the orchestra pit lowered. There was still plenty of loud playing, but under his guidance, lyricism emerged as well, encouraging legato from all the singers, who included the rich-toned baritone Alan Held as a dedicated, sadly resigned Orest, James Courtney as his ominously authoritative Guardian and Wolfgang Neumann as a haughty Aegisth. Snakelike filigrees of dialogue emerged from the secondary characters -- palace servants, Klytämnestra's Confidante and Trainbearer -- again thanks to Levine's willingness to let Strauss's score speak with innuendo as well as thunder.
In reviving Andrea Chénier (Sept. 30), the Met rolled out yet another vehicle for the talents of Plácido Domingo. While husbanding his resources with care and taking several commonly used transpositions to lower keys, the veteran tenor created a believable figure of the title role, making contrasting vignettes of his solo moments in each act. "Un dì all'azzurro spazio" (Act I) had the freshness and impetuosity of a young poet's improvisation. In "Credi al destino?" (Act II), shared with his friend Roucher, Domingo's Chénier added passion to the note of idealism sounded previously, and in the trial scene (Act III), his "Sì, fu soldato" rang with conviction. Finally, in "Come un bel dì di maggio" (Act IV), there was warm, quiet lyricism, growing at last to climactic phrases that wove together all the emotional strands already spun. In a role of relatively shallow dimensions, only a seasoned artist finds such variety of depth.
Playing Maddalena as a well-brought-up young Frenchwoman, Sylvie Valayre sang her Act I arietta, "Soffoco, moro tutta chiusa," with agility and girlish charm. However, it's for good reason -- to be found in the rest of the role -- that Maddalena is usually assigned to a lirico spinto, even to an outright dramatic soprano. From Act II onward, Valayre lacked the heft to launch Giordano's melodies con slancio into a big theater. Pressing the voice for more body drained it of color, and while the long phrases in the "Ora soave" duet (Act II) were smoothly shaped, they fell short of the sweep that underpins verismo style. Juan Pons, having hectored his way through the first two acts, devoted more care to Gérard's lines in Act III, starting with a rueful "Nemico della patria?" that cued his approaching change of heart. His scene with Valayre, keynoted by her affecting if underpowered "La mamma morta," brought out the best in Pons's surging baritone.
Gino Quilico contributed a firm, enthusiastic Roucher with clear diction, Wendy White a Madelon of opulent simplicity. Bonaventura Bottone (L'Incredibile) and John Del Carlo (Mathieu) offered strong tone and verbal underlining, while Theodora Hanslowe made a miniature character study of Bersi, Maddalena's maid. In the pit, James Levine indulged in occasional sentiment -- milking the postlude to Madelon's cameo appearance, for example -- but sustained the dramatic flow with energy, lyric grace and an appreciative ear for Giordano's bright scoring.
Paul Mills was responsible for staging the Nicolas Joël production (from 1996), conventional for the most part but idiosyncratic in a few departures that don't work, such as having the Act I aristocratic guests sing for themselves a pastoral with which costumed shepherdesses were meant to entertain them. In scenes such as the Act III tribunal, threatening in its shabby formality, Hubert Monloup's sets cleave mostly to tradition, despite a few odd touches -- Act I backed by a gigantic mirror (representing vanity), Act IV in a trashed "prison" from which anyone could walk out. The lighting in the final scene never showed any transition from dark to sunrise.
Strauss's Salome, a New York City Opera repertory item since 1947, made its reappearance on October 1. In a production new to the company, shared with Opera Pacific, designer Tim Goodchild, director Ian Judge and choreographer Sergio Trujillo all made their NYCO debuts. So did no fewer than ten cast members, including the Salome, Herodes and Narraboth.
No opera is more specific as to time and place than Salome, but this has never protected it from updating. Goodchild has set it in a cross between a Miami Beach hotel lobby and a skeletal modern office building, dominated by a sinuously curved staircase and framed by metallic artificial palms. His costumes smack more of the Gilded Age, with functionaries in epaulets and Salome gowned like a debutante. At least the beachfront suggestions of a desert are on the mark, though a cistern in the middle of the lobby might cause some patrons to watch their step.
Strauss clung to the fantasy that his heroine could and should be sung by a young woman with a lyric voice. Most theaters, and most audiences, have preferred powerful singers of a Wagnerian bent. In Eilana Lappalainen, however, NYCO opted for the composer's private preference. This attractive soprano owns a forthright but distinctly lyric instrument, which, though clear in timbre, wavered at first in tonal focus. The second half of the opera is more strenuous and dramatic, yet it was only there that she regained steadiness, and even then it seemed a triumph of sheer will over reckless casting. (She has sung Salome previously, with companies in Canada, Germany and Japan, as well as Seattle.)
A smaller theater would be more congenial, placing less stress on the voice and allowing more comfortable scope for Lappalainen's dramatically arresting interpretation. Active and athletic, she flinched at no physical challenge, rolling down a flight of stairs or writhing atop the cistern. Her youthful petulance, poise and fluent movement gave the role immediacy and credibility, save in the dance, which emerged as a nightclub number, with five black-clad male partners.
In a heavyweight performance, Mark Delavan's booming Jochanaan was a wild-eyed zealot, his wrists tethered to long chains as he was maneuvered about like a dancing bear. Oddly enough -- and disregarding the text, wherein he refuses even to look at Salome -- this production has Jochanaan embracing the girl at one point, though he reviles her when she refuses to be converted.
In contrast to the unkempt prophet, Herodes and his queen sported the most elaborate costumes of the cast, exotic and quasi-Biblical. Lighter of voice than the usual Herodes, Richard Berkeley-Steele was also more expressive and lyrically fluent than most. (This role often falls to a hoarse retired heldentenor.) Another new tenor, Brandon Jovanovich, brought similar qualities, plus a note of wild despair, to the love-smitten soldier Narraboth, cautioned by the strong mezzo of Leah Summers as Herodias's Page. Linda Roark-Strummer played Herodias with blunt vocal assertiveness, showing no patience with her husband's flights of fancy.
Salome seldom fails to rouse an audience, and this first night brought a salvo of standing applause and cheers, singling out Lappalainen. It was a heady event, stabilized throughout by the alert leadership of NYCO music director George Manahan and the assured playing of his orchestra.
JOHN W. FREEMAN
Three strong singers led the season premiere of the Met's Turandot, a production dating back to 1987 (Sept. 24). Andrea Gruber, tackling the title role for the first time at the house, proved more than equal to the challenge. Her big, gleaming voice seemed undaunted by the score's heavy demands, save for a touch of spread tone on the very highest notes. Her imperious stage manner suggested the princess's hauteur more than the vulnerability underneath, but this seemed like a minor failing considering Gruber's ability to cut through Puccini's lavish orchestrations -- even when conductor Carlo Rizzi unleashed the full force of the Met's brass and chorus.
Kirov tenor Vladimir Galouzine has mostly been linked here with Russian repertory, but the Met has started tapping him for dramatic Italian roles. This was his first local Calàf; later in the season he sings Otello. His firm, beefy voice makes it clear why the house is using him in this heavy repertoire, although his backward placement, typically Russian, makes for occluded Italian diction, and his baritonal timbre lacks Italianate squillo. Still, Galouzine's vocal heft allowed him to negotiate the role without the slightest bit of strain, and his "Nessun dorma" earned a well-deserved ovation.
Hei-Kyung Hong reprised her familiar Liù. She invested the role with veristic emotion without ever disrupting the vocal line; her lovely lirico-spinto soprano maintained its sweetness even at the role's most passionate moments. "Signore, ascolta" ended with a hairpin messa di voce that brought gasps from the audience.
Despite these performances, this Turandot emerged more as a collection of big moments than as a coherent theatrical statement. The fault surely lies with Franco Zeffirelli's gargantuan production. By now, it's such an institution that complaints seem superfluous: one might as well criticize the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Still, the production's tendency to sacrifice dramatic effectiveness for eye-popping spectacle continues to work against any singer who appears in it. Adrift in a sea of bric-a-brac and tinsel, the three able principals failed to keep the performance focused on Turandot's human drama. The audience got a lavish show, but one couldn't help but think that Gruber, Galouzine and Hong deserved better.
FRED COHN
SAN FRANCISCO For San Francisco Opera to undertake Olivier Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise -- as the American stage premiere of an opera now nineteen years old -- represented an act of faith several times over: above all, the faith of Pamela Rosenberg's new management that an audience coddled on easy-listening new operas (Dead Man Walking, A Streetcar Named Desire, etc.) might be lured further into unknown territory with a work genuinely one-of-a-kind and challenging. The circumstances were favorable -- to a point, at least: where better to produce an opera about Saint Francis than in the city bearing his name? Even so, the word was out: this was a daunting, five-hour confrontation with music, mostly slow, in an opera with few singing roles and little stage action. San Francisco's premiere (Sept. 27), the first of six performances, drew a distinguished sell-out crowd; before the long night's end, however, blocks of empty seats were visible throughout the house.
The opera has fared reasonably well over the years, certainly beyond the expectations of those (this writer included) who attended the helter-skelter 1983 premiere at the Paris Opera. Productions in Berlin and Salzburg, and a DG recording under Kent Nagano's sure baton [DG 445176], have eased its path. The opera is still hard to love, however. Over its vast time-scale, one is invited to observe, without much in the way of confirming incident (the healing of the Leper aside), the growth in spirit and wisdom of Assisi's legendary saint, his rise above the lesser spirits among his co-believers, his communion with Nature's other creatures, most of all her birds. Birds, birds, birds: for something like forty-five minutes -- one-half the length of Act II -- the saintly Messiaen proclaims his own kinship with the saintly Francis in this matter of ornithological passion. One fidgets, vainly waiting for the feathered, chattering hordes to get baked into a pie, or at least to fly the coop.
There are few surprises in Messiaen's orchestra here, except for its sheer exuberance in the marshalling of his usual massed, apocalyptic brass, the urgent summonings of clattering mallet instruments and no fewer than three of his iconic noisemakers, the wailing, throbbing keyboards known as the ondes martenot. Around and above all of this -- and truly surprising -- is the choral writing, the dense chording of semitones and microtones. In San Francisco's extraordinary production, a congruence occurs between the deep and expansive choral texture and the visual effect of singers on a slow turntable seeming to fill an entire world with their presence and their sound. Overall, it is texture, more than melody and harmony (which here -- as elsewhere in the Messiaen oeuvre -- borders on the banal and, now and then, crosses the line), that earns the most admiring attention in this ecstatic yet sporadically off-putting score.
José van Dam had pretty much owned the title role since the 1983 premiere; ownership has now passed, in glory, to Willard White. Aside from that title role, the attendant Angel -- set forth by Laura Aikin with irresistible, athletic charm -- and some stupendous vocal athletics for Chris Merritt as the Leper, Saint François is not a singer's paradise. Its strengths derive mostly from the tight interweave of its complex linearity. It fell to Donald Runnicles, the company's music director and the most significant holdover from the previous administration, to bind this all together in a performance taut and rapturous that could, at least, simulate the effect of forward motion as the music itself remains existentially still.
Nicolas Brieger's production began with silent film: Assisi's great St. Francis Basilica brutally damaged by the recent earthquake. St. Francis's story, as he told it, unfolded in both the distant past and only yesterday. Hans-Dieter Schaal's stage built on the recent horror; pieces of ruined crosses lay everywhere, extending menacingly out toward the audience, with Francis's rude cave abutting a modern three-story office building. Andrea Schmidt-Futterer's costumes were also of no time and every time; the more earthly of the Franciscan brothers toted bookkeeping ledgers and sported fedoras above their priestly robes. Under Alexander Koppelmann's lighting a soft gray luminosity covered everything, and the colors that pierced through -- a gorgeous blue streak that resolved into the Angel (complete with sunglasses) of Francis's dreaming -- created their own astonishment.
This is San Francisco's first season actually planned from Pamela Rosenberg's leadership. Of the new productions on her agenda, Saint François has, naturally, gotten the most notice; the production team includes colleagues from her years at Stuttgart Opera. In SFO promotional material, Saint François is described as a "seminal work of modern times"; arguably, it seems more like a particularly interesting dead end. Rosenberg's plans for the coming seasons reveal a creative general director willing to integrate serious musical thinking into the entertainment value of the product. Yet the "seminality" of Saint François, in its five-plus slow-moving hours, seems inadequate justification for the work's survival in the repertory.
Otherwise, San Francisco's first month offered a revival (from 1993) of David Hockney's dazzling designs for Turandot, their blatant firecracker-redness a violent contrast to Saint Francis's prevailing grays. Jane Eaglen was the Turandot, Patricia Racette the Liù, both predictably splendid; Alfred Reiter and Jon Villars, both in adequate but unremarkable San Francisco debuts, were the wandering father and amorous son. Runnicles's conducting, this one time, seemed weary -- understandable, perhaps, sandwiched in between the dress rehearsal and premiere of the Messiaen. From Lyric Opera of Chicago came John Cox's attractive production of Ariadne auf Naxos, beautifully shaped under newcomer Jun Märkl's baton, and lit by Deborah Voigt's two-edged command as the imperious Prima Donna and the tragedy-drenched Ariadne, and by the stratospheric luminosity of Laura Claycomb's Zerbinetta.
ALAN RICH
CHICAGO Lyric Opera opened its 2002--03 season with a visually lovely, musically respectable, dramatically inert new production of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci (seen Oct. 11). Though the company has been pushing the theatrical envelope in recent seasons, with daring, sometimes controversial stagings of classics such as Der Fliegende Holländer, Parsifal, Rigoletto and Hänsel und Gretel, Elijah Moshinsky's new Cav/Pag proved conservative, resolutely traditional. The most "revolutionary" concept was the visual reference to Fellini's La Strada (1954) in Michael Yeargan's set and costume designs for Pagliacci -- not at all an original approach. That said, Yeargan's set designs for both operas were gorgeous: a lavishly decorated Sicilian street (circa 1896) for C
av and an arid exurb (circa the aforementioned 1954) for Pag, easily adaptable to the needs of subsequent directors and performers.
Dolora Zajick's Santuzza dominated the evening. Although her performance lacked the haunted, obsessive quality that makes this character so compelling, Zajick did convey desperation and the sensuality reflected in every note of Mascagni's score. This Santuzza looked too dolled-up for a woman who's been sick with worry all night, but it was clear she was making an all-out effort to win back her man. In a telling musical characterization, the mezzo emphasized vulnerability by relying on a bright, sweet sound. (Just as well: was ever a Turiddu born who could face down the full force of Zajick's mighty instrument?) Fetchingly dressed, Jennifer Dudley sang appealingly in Lola's brief appearances.
The rest of the cast treated Cav as a stand-and-sing opera, which might have been understandable if the singing had been better. Vincenzo La Scola (Turiddu) caught a few of Zajick's sparks in their scena, but he seemed palpably relieved to interact with colleagues who didn't challenge him, namely Susan Nicely's stodgy Mamma Lucia and Jean-Philippe Lafont's woolly Alfio.
Despite the noble efforts of Lyric debutante Svetla Vassileva (a sympathetic though sometimes shrill -- and pregnant -- Nedda) and a host of juggling, tumbling clowns (too many for such a ragtag troupe), Moshinsky couldn't hoist Pagliacci out of the dramatic doldrums, either. Surely verismo's raison d'être is passion, but Johan Botha's expressionless Canio strenuously avoided any hint of feeling. The South African tenor hit the famous notes, often beautifully, but he remained eerily disengaged. Lafont showed more presence here than in Cav, but he never grasped Tonio's menace or the self-deluded charm of his attempted seduction. Overpowered by the orchestra -- which wasn't playing loudly -- another debutant, Mariusz Kwiecien (in too-tight jeans and leather jacket as Silvio), simply yelled at Vassileva. Pag's best singing came from Beppe, of all people, in a sweetly sung serenade, courtesy of tenor David Cangelosi.
In the pit, Bruno Bartoletti elicited a terrific performance from the Lyric orchestra, wholeheartedly unapologetic even for the corniest, most familiar passages and consistently respectful of the singers. Though the chorus sang too elegantly, they acted with spirit and character.
WILLIAM V. MADISON
BROOKLYN The history of Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival is already rich in important performances of Philip Glass's music, operatic and otherwise. Thus the premiere New York run of Galileo Galilei that opened this year's festival (seen Oct. 3) was anticipated particularly for the contributions of librettist and stage director Mary Zimmerman. The libretto, for which Zimmerman shares credit with Glass and Arnold Weinstein, presents important events from the life of Galileo in reverse chronological order: in the course of ten scenes, he first looks back on his life, wondering if he was struck blind because he lied, then he recants his beliefs in Copernican theory, appears before the Inquisition, writes his Dialogue and invents the telescope that enabled him to do so. But within the scenes, flashbacks are embedded, so there is no urgent dramatic need for the device (as there is in Harold Pinter's play Betrayal), nor does there turn out to be a musical need (as in Stephen Sondheim's musical Merrily We Roll Along). The idea seems merely to ensure that the opera not end bitterly. Zimmerman won a Tony Award in 2002 for her direction of the play Metamorphoses, so it was surprising how much of her work was conventional: characters knelt in the snow, the Cardinal appeared on a balcony simply because someone mentioned him, nuns and priests endlessly prostrated themselves during the recantation. She did her best work in the scherzo-like scene in which Galileo's assistants demonstrated their theories of motion by manipulating strings, pitchers of liquid, balls rolling down planes studded with bells, and jump ropes. Two nice touches, delightful at first but held far too long, were the correspondence of the swinging of censers to the swinging of a hanging lamp and the image of the boy Galileo rolling a piece of paper into a telescope.
The opera was performed without titles, and no printed libretto was offered, but set designer Daniel Ostling provided surfaces in each scene for the projections by John Boesche. Only selected lines of text appeared (for example, the accusations of the cardinals, but not Galileo's responses), but there was a beautiful moment when Galileo tried to touch his daughter's words before they disappeared. The lighting designs by T. J. Gerckens were unfailingly attractive. (The production was created for Chicago's Goodman Theater, in 2002.) Glass's music was a mixed bag. His trademark style found a perfect match in the experimentation scene (which has no sung text), but the recantation scene was not from his top drawer. The opening scene initially promised a welcome return to the French-influenced clarity of his Fifth String Quartet, but this was fleeting. Elsewhere, the music was often based on fourths rather than the usual triads; the opportunity of reflecting this in the libretto or staging was missed. But Glass also provided a grand, goofy Victorian waltz for the epilogue, in which the boy Galileo watches an opera by his father, Vincenzo, and here the collaborators were on the same wavelength, with a charming school-play quality. And Glass can't be blamed if a line such as "What's with these wars and all that noise?" defeated him.
In fact, Glass seemed most engaged by ironic lines, such as "Love is fixed like the heavenly earth," and the overall effect of the piece was of brightness, buoyancy and fun. The women in the cast caught this idea, especially Mary Wilson as Duchess Christina. Surely Glass intends for all of his singers to inflect the vocal lines as naturally as she does. Elizabeth Reiter was ideal as the young Maria Celeste, and Sarah Sheperd made a mark in the role of the Scribe. The men (who included John Duykers and Eugene Perry as old and young Galileo) were more conventional. William Lumpkin and the Eos Orchestra were reliable in the pit. A final word for BAM's opera house: it ought to be unremarkable to enjoy a work in a well-proportioned hall, in which unforced voices tell as they did here, but it is not.
WILLIAM R. BRAUN
DETROIT Michigan Opera Theatre opened its season with a huge new Il Trovatore production so stylistically eclectic, it seems to have everything any opera could want. Designers Dejan Miladinovic and Mileta Leskovac offered a succession of outsize, impressively executed symbols -- huge wagon-wheels, an enormous stained-glass window, massive chains, a giant portcullis. These were suspended above the otherwise traditional locales and action. So there were the usual castle walls, but these could turn translucent, to reveal giant shadows cast on them from behind (a serenading troubadour, a writhing witch, duelling swordsmen, etc.), and there were even (strangely unhelpful) lines from the source play, Gutierrez's El Trovador, projected as surtitles during the scene changes. But the thing Trovatore's story cries out for so desperately -- cohesion -- was utterly lost in protracted scenic changes, and the performance (Oct. 12) suffered. Giuliano Carella led a strong, idiomatic musical presentation. The company's orchestral and choral forces were excellently prepared, and the cast ranged from very good to outstanding.
As Ferrando, young bass Valerian Ruminski started off with an immaculate delivery of "Abbietta zingara." Though this aria seems impractical writing on Verdi's part, requiring more suppleness than most basses can deliver, Ruminski proved Verdi knew precisely what he was doing. As Leonora, soprano Indra Thomas began with a handsome "Tacea la notte," sang increasingly well all evening and ultimately won the singing honors of the evening with a superb performance of "D'amor sull'ali rosee," featuring exquisite, broad lines and breathtakingly spun, luscious high notes. The scheduled baritone, Yuri Nechaev, a Russian, encountered visa problems; in his stead, Chinese baritone C. Y. Liao took the role of di Luna and showed a well-schooled, medium-weight voice and Italianate tone. He made a fine effect with "Il balen" and was a worthy vocal presence throughout the evening.
Lithe Russian tenor Viktor Afanasenko sang Manrico; he lacks the rich tonal coloration of Corelli or Domingo, but he has a firm high register, intense high notes, and all the musicality needed for the role. Though not inclined to subtlety, on occasion he showed pleasant soft tones, and in the final scene, he delivered a prolonged and impressive high-note diminuendo ("Che festi, o cielo!"). The excellent American mezzo-soprano Barbara Dever sang a strong "Stride la vampa," but as the act progressed, her voice weakened. At mid-opera she was formally announced as being ill; she did finish the performance, albeit with diminishing effect.
None of the principals was an easy or convincing actor, and stage director Miladinovic appeared to have concentrated his efforts on the chorus -- opting for frozen-action tableaux and much ado with spears, cross-bows and close-order military drills. Lighting designer Donald Edmund Thomas made a considerable contribution, as did costume designer Milanka Berberovic, who generally favored traditional, effective designs (several extravagantly feathered helmets excepted).
JOHN KOOPMAN
INTERNATIONAL LONDON Royal Opera's incoming music director, Antonio Pappano, stepped into the Covent Garden pit on September 6 to warm applause to conduct his first new production. The vehicle was Ariadne auf Naxos -- assuredly a tricky assignment for everyone involved. Pappano brought with him director Christof Loy, one of his regular collaborators at his former domain, La Monnaie in Brussels. Loy's designer, Herbert Murauer, provided the audience with a coup de théâtre minutes into the piece. The prologue began in the ultra-chic foyer of a contemporary residence, where some of the characters began to arrive (in modern dress) for the evening's performance. A group stepped into the elevator to descend, and as they did so, the entire stage rose up, and we sank with them into the theatrical underworld of improvised dressing rooms and costumes hanging on rails. It wasn't strictly necessary, but it was fun.
Thereafter, Loy and Murauer showed their talents for witty visuals and a rather manic style of production that didn't always connect the characters closely enough one to another: everyone seemed to be doing more or less his or her own thing. But many of those things were spot-on: Thomas Allen's fraught, seen-it-all Music Master, John Graham-Hall's louche, yellow-suited Dancing Master, D'Arcy Bleiker's flouncy, spiky-haired Wigmaker. French mezzo Sophie Koch sang the Composer with indistinct German and a voice on the light side, but she rose to the challenge of her paean to the holy art of music with genuine warmth.
The opera proper was set in a drawing room with pale, greenish-blue rococo wallpaper, where Petra Lang's Ariadne was discovered at curtain lying prone over a writing desk. The commedia dell'arte troupe -- here a rock band, the men dressed in combat fatigues or tracksuits, with Jeremy White's Truffaldino an unusually cuddly Hell's Angel -- attempted in vain to cheer her up, though Nathan Gunn's charming delivery of Harlekin's little ditty must have taken some resisting.
Lang, a generous-toned Wagnerian mezzo tackling a soprano role, failed to rise to the vocal heights with the necessary clout, and her sense of parody was muted. Following the untimely death of Gösta Winbergh in March, Robert Brubaker made his Royal Opera debut as Bacchus, a role to which he brought plenty of heft while supplying a nice line in satire as the self-admiring Tenor of the prologue. Natalie Dessay's withdrawal due to ill health opened the door to the Zerbinetta of German light-soprano Marlis Petersen. She had all the notes, but it's not an especially pretty sound, and her hard-boiled characterization ran against the grain of the appealing amalgam of vulgarity and delicacy that Strauss and Hofmannsthal created.
Pappano had a good evening, though without revealing himself to be the master of focused detail and effortless flow in Strauss's chamber score that his Puccini recordings have demonstrated him to be in that repertory. But the orchestra played cleanly for him, and the general level of the show was high enough to spur the British audience -- who can at least claim him as one of their own up to his thirteenth year -- to acclaim him with sincerity.
A Covent Garden production of La Clemenza di Tito back in 1974 was sufficiently successful to help raise the international profile of this previously most neglected of Mozart's mature operas. It was conducted by then-music director Colin Davis, who returned on September 7 to lead a new staging by Stephen Lawless. (Davis rejected an intermediate production by the husband-and-wife designer/director team of Ursel and Karl Ernst Herrmann, seen in 2000, as "looking like the inside of a fridge.") Designed by Benoît Dugardyn (sets) and Sue Wilmington (costumes), this version offered a postmodern vision of ancient Rome, though with everyone except the Emperor Tito himself dressed in the period of the opera's premiere (1791).
The production made good dramatic sense of the piece, both in the wider view and in the detail, with the emotional and political scheming that encircle Tito charted meticulously and with absolute conviction. If anyone still thought of this late opera seria as cold and marmoreal, they would have been pleasantly surprised.
The cast was excellent; it would be hard -- if not impossible -- to locate better singers for these roles today. Bruce Ford sang his first Tito, not only negotiating the coloratura with assurance but conveying the emotional isolation and blend of anger and incomprehension that characterize the Emperor's discovery of his friends' betrayal. As in the Herrmann production, Vesselina Kasarova was Sesto. With every trace of idiosyncrasy banished from her vocal production, she sang with a range of feeling, dynamic and textual engagement that made her performance a benchmark in the role. Barbara Frittoli sang Vitellia, and though her lower register sounded weak in the character's top-to-bottom-and-then-back-again writing, there was no compromise on intelligent and purposeful expression.
Katarina Karnéus made her Covent Garden debut as Annio, proffering a full yet refined sound and a solid technique. Anna Netrebko delivered pristine tone and immaculately shaped phrases as Servilia. In the role of Publio, solid-as-a-rock bass Brindley Sherratt made a great deal out of relatively little.
In his beloved Mozart, Colin Davis has few -- if any -- equals today, and his incisive yet relaxed approach seemed perfectly attuned to the needs of the music. In short, this was one of Royal Opera's great evenings.
I Masnadieri (The Robbers) is one of the least-known of Verdi's operas, and the production by Elijah Moshinsky that opened at the Royal Opera House on September 30 was the first at Covent Garden. (The company toured this production in 1998, while Covent Garden was being refurbished.) Yet despite its obscurity it has a claim on local audiences, for it was the earliest of Verdi's works to be commissioned by a non-Italian theater -- in this case Her Majesty's in London's Haymarket, where it was unveiled before a glittering audience that included Queen Victoria, on July 22, 1847.
The 1847 cast included Jenny Lind and Luigi Lablache; despite their contributions and the presence of the composer himself as conductor, I Masnadieri was not greatly liked -- the London critics found Verdi's music crude and noisy -- and it quickly disappeared locally. Though it enjoyed many productions elsewhere over the next decade or two, it is only in recent times, when every note Verdi wrote apparently has become of urgent interest, that it has gained renewed currency.
I Masnadieri was the second of Verdi's operas to be based on Schiller, whose plays provided the basis also for Giovanna d'Arco, Luisa Miller and Don Carlos. Andrei Maffei's adaptation of Schiller's Die Räuber -- the German dramatist's first play, which he wrote while a student -- condenses its action but maintains its high-flown, early-Romantic manner. Francesco Moor, son of Count Massimiliano, plots against his wild, willful brother Carlo and succeeds in making his father and Carlo's beloved Amalia believe Carlo has been killed as a result of lawless escapades. The escapades are real enough. Disgusted with the materialism of society, Carlo has pledged himself to a group of bandits, whom he leads in a series of violent attacks while becoming increasingly ashamed of them. Back home, Francesco has imprisoned his own father in a dungeon and tried unsuccessfully to force his attentions on Amalia. Carlo returns, supposedly to put all to rights, but when happiness lies within his grasp, the brigands remind him of his oath of allegiance. Amalia asks Carlo to kill her rather than desert her again, and he obliges, before giving himself up to justice.
In Moshinsky's production, Carlo did away with himself, too, which didn't really mitigate the illogical logicality of his position. The production's real problem, exacerbated by Paul Brown's undistinguished set and costume designs, was that it lacked conviction. Irrational behavior can be made credible onstage only if presented with total belief.
It was apparent, nevertheless, that the possibilities of the work are real, its musical quality high. Among its highlights are rumbustious choruses for the outlaws, coloratura determination for Amalia, soulful arias for the paternal Count and a remarkable scene in which Francesco is finally visited by overwhelming guilt. This latter provided wonderful opportunities for Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who has developed into a Verdi baritone of true weight and authority, and who presented the most developed, secure interpretation of the evening. René Pape made the Count -- so poor a judge of both his sons -- a moving figure, and he sang with solid line and tone. Paula Delligatti took Lind's role, Amalia, and despatched its intermittent coloratura fireworks neatly and with some meaning. Franco Farina gave his best Covent Garden performance to date as Carlo, with the bulk of his tuning problems resolved, and with a certain sense of style.
Edward Downes, in his fifty-first season with Royal Opera, conducted with the insight and dynamism that few other contemporary interpreters bring to Verdi. His own edition was performed, prepared from materials including the score and parts used by Verdi at the 1847 premiere, which have remained in London ever since.
GEORGE HALL
VIENNA After Salzburg and Florence, Peter Stein's much acclaimed production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra reached the Vienna State Opera on October 14. More effective here than on the vast Salzburg stage, Stefan Mayer's modest sets (often only a plain horizon and the Council Chamber scene totally out of harmony with the rest) and Moidele Bickel's sober costumes concentrated the attention on the music and the drama. Stein's direction has received praise from many sides. Certainly, the action in this third mounting is admirably clear, as is the very detailed acting he obtained from all the performers, some of those in the smaller roles gainin
g considerably over their previous showing, but one couldn't help wondering whether his concentration on the purely human side at the expense of the political background did not reduce the stature of this great, if not always appreciated work.
While the two previous showings shared the same conductor and much the same cast, a totally new team was assembled by the State Opera. Naturally, much of the attention focused on Thomas Hampson, making his debut in the title role. Right from the prologue he made a very noble figure, almost too noble for the young corsair, and, as expected, he pointed his words most expressively. Even more notable was the wealth of colors employed to bring out every facet: the dreamy, wounded nostalgia of his evocations of "Maria," the tenderness of his recognition of Amelia, the eloquence in the Council Chamber and the demonic pianissimo when circling Paolo to trap him into cursing himself, finally his moving death scene -- this was a great role-assumption. On this high level, too, was Ferruccio Furlanetto's Fiesco, equally noble in "Il lacerato spirito," implacable in his opposition to Boccanegra and broken in his final remorse.
Cristina Gallardo-Domas was a frustrating Amelia. Most of her phrasing was beautifully judged, and her tone was lovely when she sang softly. However, whenever she rose to a forte, and especially in the upper range, her voice became strident. Boaz Daniel has developed considerably in recent months, and his voice rang out freely to give a suitably villainous Paolo; Miroslav Dvorsky was a sturdy Gabriele Adorno. Though announced as ill, he sounded better on October 21 than in the broadcast of the premiere. Conductor Daniele Gatti, new to Vienna, confirmed the good reputation that preceded him. His was not a very detailed view, but he did support the singers and understood their dramatic intentions. He extracted real pianissimos from the orchestra -- something they are not always willing to give -- and he displayed a good grasp of the work's dramatic sweep, unafraid to hold the long pauses demanded in the score.
CHRISTOPHER NORTON-WELSH
CARDIFF Back in 2000, Welsh National Opera became the first British company to stage a production by Catalan director Calixto Bieito, with a Così Fan Tutte that was not hugely liked. Next he was taken up by English National Opera, first with Don Giovanni, then with Un Ballo in Maschera, both of which were mauled by most critics. In September, he returned to Cardiff's New Theatre with his version of Die Fledermaus -- a piece that many of us considered a lightweight entertainment with an effervescent score. Apparently Bieito thinks we are wrong.
A few quotes from an interview with the director that appeared in the program book: "Adele is a typical Viennese character -- a working-class woman whose life could easily fall into prostitution.... The question of prostitution, and how closely it matches the activity of the women in this opera [sic], is an important one.... Champagne in the world of the operetta is a hard drug.... The society shown in the opera [is] one which produces suicide and hysteria.... My original intention was to set the whole opera in a prison.... A production like this is a warning."
Well, perhaps it is, though not necessarily in the way Bieito intends. But to specifics. The operetta (Bieito largely avoids the term) was played in one set, based on the stylish black-marble music room of the Palais Stoclet (1911) in Brussels, the work of Viennese Secessionist Josef Hoffmann. In Act I, when it's supposedly the Eisenstein residence, it's treated as an old-fashioned gentlemen's club, where a number of males doze in armchairs, rising occasionally to paw at the passing Adele. The central action plays before them. Act II, Orlofsky's party, descends into an orgy as the guests start to peel off their clothes at the "Brüderlein" ensemble. For the Act III prison scene, we're still in black marble surroundings, and the Frosch scene has been cut, "as it has always struck me," says Bieito, "as being not very effective as comedy."
It's fair to say that there was a good deal of laughter in the house on September 25, though it thinned out as the evening wore on. Quite a few people laughed at the many four-letter words in the new dialogue, the work of the playwright Mark Ravenhill (author of Shopping and Fucking and Mother Clap's Molly House), though whether that was because of their incongruity is hard to say. The general standard of delivery of the dialogue was, however, low: line after line fell flat, swear-words and all.
Meanwhile, the overall level of the production, with its constant threat of violence, occasional humping and pervasive hyperactivity, quickly became boring. The tone it adopted toward the characters was pitched at a level of critical didacticism Bertolt Brecht might have considered unduly censorious, even misanthropic. Doubtless, there was a high-minded moral purpose at work, but why here? Sure, society has its ills, in Vienna and the U.S. as well as Barcelona and Cardiff. But is a production of Fledermaus an appropriate stick to beat them with? Frankly, the piece can't take that kind of weight.
It would be nice to report that despite the production (sets by Alfons Flores, costumes by Mercé Paloma), the music came over well, but mostly it didn't. Whether due to the style of constant movement Bieito dictated or his inability (perhaps unwillingness) to allow the characters to relate one to another in a positive sense, there was a dearth of good singing. Neither Geraldine McGreevy (Rosalinde) nor Natalie Christie (Adele) fielded a sufficiently secure top register to do justice to her high-lying music. McGreevy's czardas, in particular, was no more than a sketch. As Orlofsky, Sara Fulgoni did a great deal of nervous dancing and palm-waving, but her "Chacun à son goût" made little impression; neither did Donald Maxwell -- normally such a noticeable performer -- register properly as Frank. Understudy Andrew Forbes-Lane stood in as Eisenstein and got through the night pretty well. Wynne Evans came up with some nice Italianate tone as Alfred and generally endeavored to be the life and soul of the party.
It was a pity, because there was a good conductor on hand in Claude Schnitzler. Having made the by-now-ritual obeisances in his program note to getting rid of traditional accretions, going back to the score, blah blah blah, he turned in a very stylish account of Strauss's music. Indeed the overture was terrific. But then the curtain went up, and it was downhill all the way.
GEORGE HALL
CONCERTS AND RECITALS NEWARK, NJ Cecilia Bartoli has famously commented that, for her, "crossover" does not mean altering her repertory to suit her record company's or her audience's tastes, but rather having her audience cross over to her repertory. Bartoli goes all out in her mission, and this fall, on a rare U.S. recital tour, she presented her latest selections at NJPAC's Prudential Hall (Sept. 27): songs and arias ranging from the early-seventeenth century (Caccini, Barbara Strozzi, Monteverdi, Broschi, Vivaldi) through the nineteenth century (Bellini, Donizetti, Viardot, Bizet, Rossini) to the twentieth century. (Montsalvatge's "Canción de Cuma para dormir un
negrito" was her last encore.)
In a shimmery burgundy gown and looking very well rested (Bartoli sailed on a luxury cruiser from Europe to the U.S.), the mezzo bounded onstage with gusto, ready to enjoy herself, and to entertain. In the first half, accompanied by the early-music ensemble Le Musiche Nove, she tackled Italian love songs with plenty of white tone (used to stunning effect in Caccini's "Amirilli") and real rhythmic drive, as in the pulsating last third of Monteverdi's "Quel sguardo sdegnosetto." In Strozzi's "Che si può fare," she tossed off the final bit with a wry look that mocked the speaker's endless, seemingly bottomless self-pity. Vivaldi provides a showcase for Bartoli: in his "Tra l'Erbe i Zeffiri" cantata, her staccato notes seemed literally to pop out of her mouth on the word "l'onda" (the waves), and her trills in the upper range were lovely. Bartoli isn't afraid to make an ugly sound; in Vivaldi's "Armatae face, et anguibus," she literally screamed "Furiae" (the Furies).
Her turbo-charged coloratura is certainly unconventional (yes, it sounds aspirated), but she provides such fireworks, and sings with such precision, color and variety, that it is hard to complain. Bartoli's upper range is a strength: she effortlessly flung out silvery notes above the staff in Broschi's "Son qual nave." She is particularly effective when she lightens and thins out her sound, giving the voice an added sparkle and focus; this happens most often in earlier music. Of the later composers, Bartoli was most appealing in Bizet's "Tarantelle," in which her enactment of a butterfly swirling around her head was charming and amusing, and in Viardot's "Havanaise," with spectacular added embellishments over a pulsing rhythm. (She clearly gets an added charge from performing numbers with a strong rhythmic component.)
Bartoli was least persuasive in the Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini selections, which in general seem better suited to a singer with a smoother, more even delivery and more amplitude for building to the climaxes of long phrases. Bartoli's voice sometimes gets unpleasantly wide at the top, as at the end of Rossini's Giovanna d'Arco, where there seemed to be no room for the voice to expand. The musicians of Le Musiche Nove supported Bartoli well in the first half; the expanded group included violins and viola, which gave the Vivaldi selections an extra richness and rhythmic drive. The group's harpsichordist, Andrea Perugi, served as piano accompanist in the second half. Le Musiche Nove returned to add some spice to the gentle, lilting Montsalvatge lullaby, which quieted the audience enough to get them out of the theater (perhaps to join the long line of fans waiting for autographs).
It is refreshing to hear a recitalist who loves being onstage this much -- bouncing in rhythm (in a couple of spots she came just short of snapping her fingers), smirking to the audience as she put an extra-long fermata on a high note, popping her eyes and making wild facial expressions as she zipped around coloratura phrases. With her natural comic ability, she generally got laughter in all the right places. When playing the lovesick swain, she showed her despair in frowns that threatened to bring the corners of her mouth down to chin level.
It was clear that a good portion of this audience rarely attended this kind of event -- but Bartoli didn't really seem to mind (despite frequent interruptions of applause between songs within the same group). Presumably, she is aware that this is the same public that has bought enough of her recordings to make her one of today's best-selling classical singers.
JENNIFER MELICK
NORTH AMERICA: Rudel conducts Chicago Susannah; Harris, Hancock make Atlanta Figaro count; Vaness in Pittsburgh's Ballo; Shin in Baltimore's first Lakmé; Washington Opera's refreshing Bohèmes; Turandot in Hartford; Opera Carolina's Figaro.
INTERNATIONAL: At Berlin's Komische Oper, the Homoki era begins, with a catastrophic Bartered Bride; Scottish Opera's Siegfried in Glasgow; Ono conducts Elektra at Brussels's Monnaie; Rosenkavalier in Lyon; Sedov is Bordeaux's Giovanni; Siegfried in Toulouse; Macau Festival's Bohème; L'Elisir d'Amore in Buenos Aires; Werther in Copenhagen; Don Carlo in Graz.
CONCERTS & RECITALS: Voigt in American Symphony Orchestra's Die Ägyptische Helena; Opera Orchestra of New York's Pêcheurs de Perles; Montreal's Damnation de Faust. At Carnegie Hall, Quasthoff and Denoke cry Wolf, plus a different Bartoli program; Lincoln Center recitals by Hunt Lieberson, van Dam. Elektra in Monte Carlo, with DeVol, Silja.
NORTH AMERICA CHICAGO Lyric Opera's coproduction (with Houston) of Carlisle Floyd's Susannah returned to the Civic Opera House last fall, with two company debutants, Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role and Anthony Dean Griffey as her brother; Samuel Ramey revisited his celebrated portrayal of Olin Blitch (seen Oct. 12). On the podium, Julius Rudel, who conducted this opera's New York premiere in 1957, displayed his affection for it with every wave of his baton. Seldom can Floyd's score have sounded more thrilling, its dramatic points better earned, its orchestral palette richer. Robert Falls's production (restaged by Brenda Nuckton, designed by Michael Yeargan and lit by Duane Schuler) seems bathed in moonlight, and that's precisely the glow Rudel drew from the orchestra.
With her ready smile and good looks, Radvanovsky proved an unusually credible heroine until the opera's last scene, when her descent into madness seemed abrupt and unmotivated. (However, that's a trap built into Floyd's libretto.) Her chocolaty soprano brought out the best in the score's gentler moments, notably her Act II ballad, "The trees on the mountain," but the Illinois native needs to work on her American diction. Griffey made Sam a natural addition to his gallery of troubled outsiders. The beaming good humor he shared with Susannah obviously masked something much darker: it seemed inevitable that he'd pick up his gun and start shooting, sooner or later.
Ramey's Olin Blitch, a highlight of this production at its Chicago and Houston premieres (as well as at the Met in 1999), showed greater dramatic intensity than in years past but diminished vocal power. Though Blitch has little to do in Act I, Ramey seemed to be holding back, waiting for the big preaching scene in Act II, when he touched at last on the demonic quality that was still eluding him a few years ago. The large ensemble cast and the chorus turned in smart characterizations, notably David Cangelosi's Little Bat and Dorothy Byrne and Michael Devlin's sanctimonious McLeans.
WILLIAM V. MADISON
ATLANTA Mozart may have dubbed his opera Le Nozze di Figaro, but the marriage of the Almavivas held center stage in Atlanta Opera's otherwise thoroughly traditional production (seen September 22). While the opera was solidly cast from top to bottom, most of the emotional impact was generated by John Hancock's aristocratic Count and Brenda Harris's sophisticated Countess, two portrayals that deftly captured the class-consciousness at the heart of the opera's source material. Tall and good-looking, Hancock sang his role in an elegant, supremely assured baritone, eschewing vulgar bluster. This Count clearly was used to getting his way, but he was nobody's fool, which lent an unusually suspenseful tone to the proceedings in Act II, as the character keeps very nearly figuring out the subterfuges of the other characters. Moreover, when Hancock's Count began to suspect that his wife had been seduced by Cherubino or another suitor, his reaction was not simply the outrage of a cuckolded husband but the far more complicated pain of a man who feared he'd lost the woman he truly loved. It was a fleeting but revealing moment that foreshadowed his humiliation in Act IV and, ultimately, suggested for once that Almaviva's repentance was genuine. Harris likewise underscored her character's nobility, with a touching but somewhat cool "Porgi amor" that indicated this woman was used to dealing her with her emotions privately. She trusted Susanna, yet she was obviously mortified to have her marital woes playing out in full view of her serving staff. The character seemed somehow even more poignant for her reluctance to beg for our sympathy, and the soprano sang with sublime beauty and tastefulness throughout.
In contrast, the principal domestics made a somewhat mixed impression. Richard Bernstein's flamboyant Figaro was a clear audience favorite, singing with bravura and confidence while rounding all the dramatic bases with his characterization. Up against the subtle performances of Hancock and Harris, Bernstein's high-energy entrances occasionally seemed jarring, but in fairness that's somewhat built into this role. Conversely, Allison Charney's Susanna was reliably sung but somewhat undercharacterized. Kitt Reuter-Foss made a touching, funny Cherubino, who seemed even younger than usual, while hometown girl Delores Ziegler was a deluxe bit of casting as Marcellina.
Following an over-busy Act I that saw Marcellina completely upstaging the flavorfully sung vengeance aria by Philip Cokorinos's Bartolo, Dejan Miladinovic's direction settled into a more relaxed staging that wisely let Mozart and da Ponte do their work. William Fred Scott and his pit musicians clearly demonstrated that trust from the first notes of the overture, in a reading that was sprightly but nonetheless heartfelt.
JOHN CROOK
PITTSBURGH John Mauceri, Pittsburgh Opera's music director, is on the advisory board of the new Verdi edition, and he brought some of the latest scholarship to Un Ballo in Maschera, for the company's season-opener at the Benedum Center (Oct. 19). Not that there was anything noticeably academic in the performance. The evening was about partying, not pedantry.
Mauceri brought back the opera's original Swedish setting (with historical names for the characters, and sets dominated by Ezio Frigerio's outsize columns and arches), and he went back to authentic sources for the score. The differences were subtle, mostly in tempo markings and phrasings that gave a more leisurely, lyrical character to the music of King Gustavus (Riccardo). Mauceri's specialty is Verdi's leitmotivic use of metronome markings -- associating particular speeds with emotional states or elements of the plot. He has written several articles on the subject, and here he had the opportunity -- amid unremarkable staging by Sandra Sachwitz Bernard -- to put his theories to the test.
Mauceri's approach seemed to keep Frank Lopardo (Gustavo) from exploiting his stentorian tones to their fullest capacity. On his entrance, Lopardo's voice had volume and resonance to burn. By the time he got to his first aria, however, he sounded timid and intimidated. In most of the lyrical passages, Lopardo held back, losing resonance in all but the climactic high notes, which were wonderful but too infrequent.
The evening's best singing came from baritone Anthony Michaels-Moore, who must surely possess one of the most gorgeous voices on the opera stage today. His sound has real presence, and its honeyed opulence dominated every scene in which he appeared. "Eri tu" was predictably a highlight (though the singer's energy level flagged just a little near the end), and elsewhere he commanded the stage as a multi-sided figure torn between anger and sorrow.
Marianne Cornetti made the most of Ulrica's single scene, with her sumptuous high register and full-throated incantation of the low-lying passages. A Pittsburgh native, Cornetti has become a genuine dramatic mezzo. She is also an extraordinary artist, who made every word count and left an aura that lingered on in the acts to follow.
Carol Vaness has had success with the role of Amelia, and she showed some interesting dramatic ideas, but the voice is not a true Verdi soprano. She has beefed up her basically Mozartean sound with heavy chest tones, with the result that the middle has lost color and her high notes have turned acidic and tremulous.
Lisa Saffer's pallid soprano was too small for the hall, her portrayal of the page Oscar overly cute and feminine. Basses Arthur Woodley and Kevin Maynor made a threatening pair of conspirators, and Mauceri underlined the menace by hiring an additional bass-player to reinforce his orchestra.
ROBERT CROAN
BALTIMORE There should always be room for operas that don't aspire to the grandest of heights, that are more about sentiment and atmosphere than intellectual or musical depth. Leo Delibes's Lakmé is a perfect case in point. The score boasts an unending tunefulness that falls gracefully on the ear; one can hear, on nearly every page, the efforts not just of a master craftsman but of a master charmer. The plot creaks, yet given an imaginative staging and scenic design, it can yield considerable theatrical interest as it weaves a tale of clashing cultures and doomed love. Baltimore Opera Company's production of Lakmé hit the mark only musically (heard Oct. 9); the listlessly directed, dishearteningly provincial-looking production at the Lyric Opera House nearly sank the whole effort.
Youngok Shin revealed admirable sensitivity in the title role, both in her singing and in her characterization. She made a valiant effort to give Lakmé genuine depth; this was no cliché bit of exotica. Here was an Indian priestess very much troubled by the awakening of love and the resultant, unavoidable betrayal of her sacred duty. The soprano's voice, while a little metallic around the edges, exuded plenty of warmth. Coloratura challenges were met with confidence and tonal solidity. Opportunities for lyrical expansiveness, fully supported by conductor Alberto Veronesi, inspired exceptional beauty of phrasing. Fernando de la Mora (Gérald) paid close attention to dynamic nuances; lovely, soft notes and bright, ringing ones poured out with more or less equal ease from his basically attractive tenor. An even wider range of tonal coloring would have been welcome, but this was stylish singing. His acting, however, didn't get much beyond the routine.
As Nilakantha, Alfredo Zanazzo provided just enough vocal heft and, in the brief "Lakmé, ton doux regard se voile," sensitive phrasing, though he is a stiff, old-fashioned actor. More persuasive characterizations came from Daniel Mobbs's suave-toned Frédéric and Kathleen Stapleton's warmly sung Mallika. Taylor Hargrave (Hadji) proved reliable, and Madeleine Gray (Miss Benson), Rosemary Rossi (Ellen) and Suzanne S. Chadwick (Rose) livened things up, vocally and theatrically, during their brief appearances. The chorus, prepared by James Harp, turned in sturdy, smoothly blended singing. Veronesi was keenly attuned to the music's vivid coloring and rhythmic flow. Throughout the performance, he didn't hesitate to put real fire into the proceedings, nor did he miss any opportunity to caress a melodic line. The orchestra gave him cohesive, admirably detailed playing throughout.
The production's final asset was the use of the original spoken dialogue. However, the static, chintzy, badly lit set might have done in 1940, but not today, especially since trite motions and rudimentary blocking were the rule in director/designer Roberto Lagana's staging. Particularly unsatisfying was the opera's final moment, with Lakmé dropping to her death, totally ignored by Gérald and only barely noticed by her father. Délibes's delicate heroine -- indeed, his whole opera -- deserved more thought.
TIM SMITH
WASHINGTON, DC Freshness abounded at the Kennedy Center in Washington Opera's La Bohème (Sept. 21), a venture characterized by engaging vocalism, involving portrayals, individualistic conducting and incisive direction.
Eugene Kohn's guidance in the pit would not be to every taste, for sure. He paced the most lyrical moments with the kind of expansiveness that hasn't been fashionable in many a year; he pushed and pulled at tempos elsewhere, as if determined to let no moment go by predictably. The cast went along for this curvy ride, using the extra time he allowed to get something deeply communicative -- sometimes simply radiant -- out of phrases. The spacious pacing in "O soave fanciulla," especially in the closing measures, took on a poignant tinge, as if the lovers were afraid to let go of their initial, unexpected pleasure. (Their last note -- the original, lovelier harmonized version, rather than in unison -- seemed to be held for an hour and a half.) A similar breadth of tempo and feeling marked the end of Act III.
Aquiles Machado, as Rodolfo, demonstrated welcome, uncommon interest in soft dynamic shadings and the breath control to linger effortlessly on a particularly endearing turn of phrase or a climactic moment. The tone was warm and rounded, the acting affecting. The tenor used his somewhat less-than-hunky form to keenly sympathetic effect. Reeling from the reality of Mimì's death, he looked truly devastated, hitting himself limply with clenched fists. Eugenia Garza likewise proved a telling actress, finding the charm and vulnerability in Mimì. One wished her voice were prettier, less propelled by vibrato, but the soprano can milk a phrase with the best of them, finishing "Donde lieta uscì" in gorgeous, melting fashion.
Alfredo Daza's Marcello was firmly, richly sung and acted with assurance and nuance. Kelly Cae Hogan's Musetta brought abundant vocal color and power, not to mention theatrical personality, to the proceedings. Malcolm Mackenzie (Schaunard), Orlin Anastassov (Colline, with a long-breathed, exquisitely shaded coat aria) and William Parcher (Benoit and Alcindoro) completed the vivid cast. Choral contributions were bright and disciplined; the orchestra held up its part respectably.
Sandra Bernhard got the action flowing with natural ease. Charming touches were everywhere: Musetta got Marcello's attention with napkin tosses perfectly timed to the introductory harp plucks; a white-bearded gentleman dined at Cafe Momus and had a drink in the Act III tavern, jotting down notes about the intriguing bohemians. Michael Yeargan's straightforward set provided plenty of atmosphere.
Leading the second cast, Virginia Tola (Mimì, Sept. 22) produced a somewhat edgy tone but nicely shaped phrases; her characterization was on the generic side. The same was true for Konstyantyn Andreyev (Rodolfo), who sounded like a tenor-in-progress, escaping from some high notes quickly and straining on others. Vladimir Moroz offered a solid baritone, if limited color and spark, as Marcello; Elena de la Merced was the pleasant Musetta. Conductor Giovanni Reggioli encountered occasional coordination problems between stage and pit, but his effective phrasing and tempos, very traditional compared to Kohn's, inspired much more fervent playing from the orchestra; the score's climactic moments sounded truly ravishing.
TIM SMITH
HARTFORD After a September gala featuring Luciano Pavarotti, Connecticut Opera opened its stage season at Hartford's elegant Bushnell with another Big Event: a well-cast, satisfying Turandot that wowed the capacity crowd (Oct. 17). Using Alfano's ending (with the standard modifications), artistic director Willie Anthony Waters led a solid account of the score, trumpet bobble leading into the riddle scene notwithstanding.
With a good stage figure and greater mobility and expressiveness than the usual glacial princess, Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet commanded the title role. The part's fearsome range presented no problems, and her fine chest voice was particularly welcome. At middle dynamics, her voice took on a pleasing, mellow warmth; at full tilt, the sound sometimes suffered from excessive, pitch-obscuring vibrato. Company favorite Eduardo Villa displayed the spinto goods for Calàf and (despite occasional foursquare phrasing on phrases involving his clarion top notes) also the musical sensitivity to lighten his timbre and taper dynamics when appropriate.
Geraldine McMillian created a sincere, sympathetic Liù. More lyrical than the usual stentorian bass, Herbert Perry created a memorable Timur. Altoum, splendidly costumed by Charles R. Caine, emerged with dignity and an interesting musical profile via Mitchell Piper's quick-vibrato tenor. Matthew Lata directed with clarity, though the ending of Act I lacked dramatic thrill. Having Turandot kiss Calàf in Act III's final confrontation seemed a concession to contemporary sensibilities.
Alison Nadler's attractive scenery (borrowed from Orlando Opera) tended toward textbook black, red and gold staircases, draperies and banners, plus wheeled shelf units from the Forbidden City IKEA for the three ministers' personal effects. As Ping, baritone Kenneth Overton's voice was occluded by indisposition. With a bright, high tenor, Matthew Cook's Pong came off best among the busy ministers; Brian Frutiger sang Pang. Projected titles (by Bayshore Opera Translations) proved unusually inaccurate and misleading.
DAVID SHENGOLD
CHARLOTTE, NC Opera Carolina opened the season on October 17 with Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro -- even more successful than last spring's season-ending Il Barbiere di Siviglia, partly because the Mozart--da Ponte piece is more substantial than Rossini's gem. A good deal of the credit was due to stage director Bernard Uzan (who also staged the Barber). Large panels with the texts of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens and the American Declaration of Independence served as the ingenious, appropriate backdrop in most scenes (except, curiously, the last one, when the Count gets his comeuppance) to remind modern audiences of the revolutionary political atmosphere of the work's creation. For the most part, Uzan didn't get carried away with his concept: this was a well-staged, well-sung, well-played but really traditional production. Uzan's handling of the characters and the dramatic pacing was exemplary -- the blocking and business were inventive, appropriate and deftly executed by the admirable cast. There were only two major miscalculations. During the overture, servants became so agitated by reading the two Declarations that they confronted the Count, in a pantomime that played against the wonderfully bubbling music. And the Count and Countess were enthroned, in preparation for the wedding scene, only to preside over a lengthy set-change.
The cast was uniformly excellent. Dean Peterson's brash Figaro, Indira Mahajan's expressive Susanna, Brenda Harris's pining Countess, Christòpheren Nomura's blustering Count and Lori-Kaye Miller's delightful Cherubino were all more than up to the vocal and dramatic challenges of their characters. In smaller roles, the oily Basilio (Steven LaCosse), the comic couple of Bartolo and Marcellina (Dale Travis and Deborah Fields, an audience favorite), the slapstick of Antonio (Donald Hartmann) and the naïveté of Barbarina (Lucy Tucker Yates) all rose to the high level of achievement. Conductor James Meena was in firm control from the pit, and the Charlotte Symphony underpinned the action with solid playing.
LUTHER WADE
INTERNATIONAL BERLIN To inaugurate his tenure as chief director at Berlin's Komische Oper, Andreas Homoki transferred Smetana's The Bartered Bride to Germany, 1989, immediately after the fall of the Wall, to mock capitalism's seduction of naïve East Germans. In Berlin, one feels lucky to see one production a year that lives up to international standards, despite the fact that the city has three major companies; if this had been any other premiere, one would have dismissed it as just another artistic failure. But this was different: opening night (Sept. 8) marked a new era, prior to which Homoki (replacing Harry Kupfer, after a twenty-one-year reign) bragged of his plans to transform Komische Oper into Berlin's most exciting company. Consequently, expectations ran high -- and were shattered one by one during the evening, which ended in the most violent storm of boos heard at this house in years.
A gray fence, about ten feet high, by Frank Philipp Schlössmann (designer of the Met's new Jenuºfa) served as Bartered Bride's only set piece, in front of which characters and chorus kept busy, running from side to side. Every few minutes, Kecal's salesmen rolled in carts with the cheapest, tackiest Western goods, upon which the Easterners hurled themselves. Confronted with beer cans, Homoki's Easterners were too dumb to open them. Surprisingly, he believed them capable of peeling a banana (a fruit they'd only heard about under the restrictive, economically devastated socialist system).
Though the intended story of Bartered Bride disappeared behind Homoki's concept, the company's new general music director, Kirill Petrenko, made sure this was still Smetana's night. The orchestra played with a wonderful freshness, drive and precision that raised hopes that there might at least be a bright musical future ahead for the company. Only two of the singers nourished that thought, though: tenors Torsten Kerl (Jenik) and Andreas Conrad (Vasek). Tall and vigorous, Kerl approached his role as if he were auditioning for Siegfried, and he displayed a big, full-bodied, rich voice. Singing impeccably, Conrad carved a subtly comic, compassionate character study. Bettina Jensen's matronly Marenka seemed too much the rough-hewn peasant, not witty enough, and her vocal performance, without faults but also without impact, did not make up for the confusion generated by her playing against type. Manfred Hemm, whose bass voice is clearly past its prime, played Kecal as a slimy, greedy type eager to sell anything, whether bananas or brides. The supporting roles backed up the prejudice that the vocal standards at Komische Oper are too often far behind those of the other two Berlin houses. This was as bad a start as could be for the Homoki era.
JOCHEN BREIHOLZ
GLASGOW Finding convincing vocal exponents for the chief roles in Wagner's music dramas assuredly never has been easy, but there's a general feeling nowadays that it's become more difficult than ever. Yet the most impressive single element of Scottish Opera's Ring -- which has now reached its third installment -- has been the casting. Following its debut at the Edinburgh Festival, Siegfried opened the company's season at its Glasgow base, the Theatre Royal (seen Sept. 14), and it fielded consistently robust performances in all the principal roles.
Matthew Best's Wanderer was world-class, a vocal reading of outstanding aural and psychological richness. His vibrant, dark-hued tonal palette commanded an immense range of coloristic nuance, and his understanding of the retiring god's ambivalence toward his self-initiated destruction was masterly.
Rising to the even more daunting challenges of the impulsive (or brattish) young hero was British-born tenor Graham Sanders, who has spent the past several years singing the heftier Italian and German roles (including Otello and Walther von Stolzing), mainly in central European houses. His isn't the biggest sound, but it's ample, bright and bold. Over the long evening, perhaps two phrases failed to hit the heights cleanly, but not more.
Elizabeth Byrne confirmed the highly positive impression made by her Brünnhilde (in Die Walküre with the company in 2001) in her reappearance as Siegfried's newly awakened aunt. Though the Siegfried final scene is (by Wagnerian standards) a relatively short assignment, it is fearfully exposed, its glad, confident opening salutations floodlit by the audience's long built-up expectations. Within minutes, Byrne was firing off empowered, focused notes in all registers, and she and Sanders closed the opera in a blaze of emotional optimism and vocal glory.
In the intellectual parry and thrust of their scene together, Peter Sidhom's formidable Alberich matched Best's Wotan note for note and point for point. He also scored impressively in his scene with Alasdair Elliott's nerdy yet surprisingly sympathetic Mime. (Throughout, Tim Albery's production opted for complex characterizations, not caricatures.) Gillian Keith offered an entrancing Forest Bird, a petite, white-suited figure whose infinitely neat, bird-like movements matched the precision of her back-and-forth darting over the folksy pentatonic scale Wagner employed to delineate the innocence of nature.
Markus Hollop sang a resonant Fafner -- visualized as an enormous screen-painting of a hungry mouth that fell away following Siegfried's lethal attack to reveal the more vulnerable (though still unusually tall!) figure of the mortally wounded giant, whose death scene thereafter proved extremely moving. Singing with dignity and perception, Helene Ranada's Erda -- portrayed as a handsome, mature woman, rather than as something that might materialize in a dark corner at a Victorian séance -- helped Wotan (and the audience) take stock of exactly where we'd all got to in this saga to end all sagas.
But Albery's direction already had engaged -- and maintained -- audience interest fully. His was a detailed approach, charting with patient deliberation the subtle arguments of right and wrong, ownership and theft, power and renunciation, of which Siegfried alone -- in his blissful ignorance -- is completely unaware. With the aid of Hildegard Bechtler's sets and Ana Jebens's costumes, a balance was struck between modernism and traditionalism. There were plenty of suits and dark glasses around, but the sword and spear retained their appointed places, and when Siegfried finally realized Brünnhilde's non-maleness with the notorious exclamation, "Das ist kein Mann!," he did so after lifting up her canonical breastplate. There was no attempt (as sometimes there has been recently) to present a reductive or self-satirizing Ring. The richness of poetic metaphor and intellectual ambition of Wagner's conception were presented in terms that left its multiplicity of meanings open for the audience to explore.
None of this could have registered so forcefully without the eloquent playing of Scottish Opera's orchestra or the supple, singer-friendly conducting of music director Richard Armstrong. His was neither showy Wagner -- there was never any blatant pointing-up of leitmotifs -- nor a piecemeal approach, relishing highlights at the expense of overall textural flow. Instead, it moved forward without let or hindrance, purveying a warmth and a spaciousness that never grew so hot or so large as to burn the singers out of the wider musical picture.
GEORGE HALL
BRUSSELS At his first appearance as music director of Brussels's Théâtre de la Monnaie, Japanese conductor Kazushi Ono presented himself as a force to be reckoned with. His first production, Strauss's Elektra (seen Oct. 4), revealed orchestral playing of great discipline, with a wide variety of colors, though during the first fifteen minutes, the melodic lines seemed cut into pieces. However, from the entrance of Chrysothemis (sung with a radiant voice and sheer beauty of timbre by Charlotte Margiono), the lyricism in this fascinating score became more and more evident. Ono built a strong music drama, with full support from his musicians. Tellingly, in this relatively small theater, he managed to create an impressive balance between orchestra and singers in several moments of instrumental vehemence. Though the orchestral climaxes got full attention, the singing was more clear and understandable than I remember hearing in any other performance. Moreover, Ono inspired his soloists to phrase as if they were singing Mozart or French opéra-comique: Hofmannsthal's marvelous text was delivered with the utmost attention to the smallest details, evoking unexpected colors in the vocal lines.
In this respect, the most valuable contributions came from English soprano Susan Bullock in the title role. Bullock started her career in the lyric repertoire but is now developing as a dramatic soprano, singing Isolde and Brünnhilde. She takes a lyric approach to the vocal difficulties of such parts and lavishes great attention on the libretto; here, she presented a memorably vulnerable character.
Albert Dohmen contributed a sonorous Orest, and the ever-reliable Ian Caley avoided caricature as Aegisth. Swedish mezzo-soprano Ingrid Tobiasson's interpretation of Klytämnestra was unusual: no walking ruin, but a woman just past the prime of life, singing with more youth and vitality than the character is usually portrayed.
Director Stéphane Braunschweig took advantage of the theater's size, creating a heartrending sense of intimacy, in which the Servants were able to show more individuality during the opening scene. Designing his own sets, Braunschweig chose not the traditional outdoor setting but an interior: a bedroom (Klytämnestra's) upstage and a bathroom downstage, where Elektra kept watch over the bathtub in which Agamemnon had been killed. The setting, the growing importance of the color red in the set and the simple nineteenth- and twentieth-century costumes by Thibault Vancraenenbroeck suggested that we were not watching real events but Elektra's fantasies (or even her nightmare). Wisely, Braunschweig left this choice to the imagination of the audience.
PAUL KORENHOF
LYON Kasper Holten's Der Rosenkavalier for Opéra National de Lyon (seen Oct. 12) bypassed old-order formality to cut straight to the emotional core of the work. Holten, twenty-nine-year-old artistic director of Royal Danish Opera, and his team of Marie i Dali (sets and costumes) and Jasper Kongshaug (lighting) chose a contemporary setting, cleverly translating period details into logically modern situations.
The opening scene was played in a simple chocolate- and cream-colored boudoir, where Ochs's slicked-back hair and leather coat and his somewhat menacing servants were clear markers of a lower social order. The Marschallin's monologue was a scena of full emotional range, from her fury at Ochs and his ilk to wistfulness, as she contemplated the end of her affair with Octavian.
Act II was staged as a press conference announcing the betrothal. The semi-circular gallery of Faninal's mansion was decorated with eighteenth-century trappings for the benefit of assembled photographers; Sophie and Octavian went through the motions of the presentation in period dress, and only when they'd changed back into modern dress did their mutual attraction emerge. Ochs and his oafish, lederhosen-clad entourage provided a pointed contrast to this urbane society. Lighting dramatically changed color to underline pivotal moments.
Act III was set in a nightclub, with lurid, red-velvet-lined, curved walls and convenient doors for the dirndl-clad Mariandel's accomplices and revelers, some en travesti. The lustful Ochs was decked out in Elvis pompadour, white sequined suit and cowboy boots (a questionable inspiration), the Marschallin in elegant white pant-suit and sunglasses. At the chaotic climax, the walls of the cabaret fell away to reveal a projection of the Vienna skyline by night, and for the celestial music of the trio, the backdrop panned up from the dome of St. Stephen's to the starry sky above.
Hedwig Fassbender offered an exquisitely detailed, heartfelt Marschallin, with perfect looks and demeanor for the maturing but still alluring aristocrat. Her voice, while no longer fresh, was as beautifully groomed and maintained as the physique of a trophy wife; difficulties with exposed high pianissimos were employed cannily to suggest emotional breakdowns. The excellent Katharine Goeldner played Octavian as a very modern young man, more impetuous and emotional than conscious of the dignity of his title (especially at the end of Act I). Patricia Petibon's Sophie was a feisty but fluttery redhead who sang with visible tension but floated the necessary high notes. The three women's voices blended beautifully.
Günter Missenhardt was an energetic, mesmerizing Ochs. His carefully calibrated declamatory approach effectively projected character as well as text without sacrificing the sung line. David Pittman-Jennings sang a sturdy Faninal. Ian Thompson was amusing as Valzacchi, here an agitated tabloid journalist. Martine Olmeda, as his photographer sidekick, was more seductive visually than vocally. Jean-Luc Viala was a fine, funny Italian tenor. Christian Badea's energetic, fluid tempos kept the action moving and limned emotional moments without losing the music's sensuality.
SUSAN BRODIE
BORDEAUX Youth and violence carried the day in Laurent Laffargue's provocative, effective new Don Giovanni for l'Opéra National de Bordeaux (seen Oct. 8). The production, designed for twenty-eight-year-old Denis Sedov in the title role, cast the protagonist as a "kamikaze personality," a haunted young man in a very big hurry. Resembling Mick Jagger, the lanky Don was hair-trigger impatient, fond of toys, apt to whip out a weapon at the slightest annoyance. The action was moved to pre-Fascist 1920s Italy, an era deemed violent and dangerous. Hervé Poeydomenge dressed the chorus in period street clothing (brown shirts) and the principals in black-and-white, either modern or generic eighteenth-century garb, with striking exceptions -- the Don's party at the end of Act I became a decadent baccanal, in homage to Luchino Visconti's 1969 film, The Damned. Philippe Casaban and Eric Charbeau's minimalist sets consisted of a blank white background furnished with blocky white elements that functioned architecturally as walls, seats or columns, moving smoothly between scenes. Red costume elements and props provided contrast and symbolism. Sets often contracted to reduce the playing space at scene's end, underlining a sense of the world closing in on the Don.
The action opened with Giovanni in bed with Donna Anna. Explicitly too late to defend his daughter's honor, the Commendatore lost his life to Giovanni's switchblade, and his blood stained the stage for the rest of the act. Giovanni played with toys, defaced the walls, threatened Leporello with a pistol and generally behaved abominably. Gimmicky touches abounded: those brown-shirted choristers; a naked girl on a swing near the end of the catalogue aria; drug use. Yet despite stage excesses, this Don proved a persuasive, even pitiable damned soul. In his final interview with the stoned guest, that naked girl returned to drag Giovanni down to Hell. But he wrested free and pulled his ever-ready handgun on himself, master of his own fate to the end. In the final tableau, Leporello crouched over his master's body, the blood-spattered white wall behind them echoing Act I's red stain.
Sedov, though announced as indisposed, sang solidly, sounding a bit congested but struggling only with the exposed lines of the serenade. Nicolas Cavalier's gruff-sounding Leporello had the largest voice onstage, an imbalance due perhaps to Sedov's illness. Eva Jenis's Donna Anna was rapturously received, though both her characterization and her voice were somewhat bland. Mireille Delunsch played Donna Elvira as a straight tragic figure; her lightish voice might have been better suited to Zerlina, and her Mozartean legato needed work. Bradley Williams had a querulous tone appropriate to the put-upon Ottavio. Cassandre Berthon (Zerlina) and Till Fechner (Masetto) sang and acted attractively; Fernand Bernadi was an imposing Commendatore.
Enrique Mazzola's reduced orchestra (with fortepiano for the recitatives) achieved instrumental balances that gave expressive prominence to inner voices [????], as did selective rubatos. Some tempos, however, were stretched beyond coherence, particularly in a mannered "Non mi dir."
SUSAN BRODIE
TOULOUSE In his third installment of the Ring cycle for the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse, Nicolas Joel conceived a traditional Siegfried with modern touches. In this new production (seen Oct. 9), the young hero is a child of nature whose rites of passage thrust him into post-industrial realities. Ezio Frigerio's sets and Vinicio Cheli's lighting designs used painted scrims as shallow backdrops to confine the beginning of each act to the front of the stage, later melting away to reveal an artifact of the modern world that filled the stage. In Act I, the forest watchtower behind Mime's dwelling morphed, as the Wanderer entered, into the steel tower of a mineshaft, where Siegfried forged his sword. The ochre mountain pass where Mime led Siegfried to seek Fafner's cave (with Alberich keeping watch from a dumpster) was transformed into a glowing smelter's furnace with a gaping, rolling mouth. Props were absent during the Wanderer's Act III interviews with Erda and Siegfried, which took place against a projection of a raging flow of lava. After Siegfried bested his grandfather, the ring of fire faded to reveal Brünnhilde slumbering under a grand stone triumphal arch, flanked by twin staircases and surmounted by six rearing stallions (abandoned by Brünnhilde's sisters?).
Siegfried's trials came to represent struggles in the larger world and brought the narrative a modernity that transcended the libretto's fairy-tale origins. The incongrous, idealized setting of Brünnhilde's awakening was an ironic contrast to the industrial constructions of Acts I and II, and it underlined the artificiality of this romance. For all his heroic nature, Siegfried proved less dominant than Mime, Wotan or Alberich, or even the Forest Bird, though they directed his destiny.
Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperhacke gave a robust, impressive first-time portrayal of Mime. Alan Woodrow's mature but impetuous Siegfried sang with ringing tone in the mid-range but sounded tight on top, and his pitch tended to go flat under pressure. Peter Sidhom's excellent, menacing Alberich was vocally solid and dramatically nuanced. Gudjon Oscarsson as Fafner projected dark, sonorous malevolence, both from within the belly of the beast (with amplification) and onstage, after he crawled from the dragon's mouth to die, an evil wizard revealed. Janice Baird's glamorous Brünnhilde had a Katharine Hepburn allure and lustrous tone that sometimes landed shy of pitch on high notes. Qiu Lin Zhang's ragdoll Erda, draped in red patchwork, oozed earthy despair with luscious sound.
SUSAN BRODIE
MACAU For this year's Macao International Music Festival, artistic director Warren Mok presented alternating casts in La Bohème; Mok, a tenor born in Hong Kong, took the lead in the second cast (seen Oct. 5).
Mok had a good match in his Mimì, Robin Follman, a singer--actress fully worthy of that dual distinction. From their first extended duet, the two achieved a balanced chemistry of immediate attraction and troubled distance that marked their characterizations for the duration of the performance. However, it was unclear how much of that edginess was intended and how much was due to a lack of coordination between the stage and pit in the Macao Cultural Center. Throughout most of the evening, conductor Carlo Donadio was either unable or unwilling to keep the Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia at a realistic volume, leaving the singers little room to manoeuver vocally.
By the next night, the orchestra (again under Donadio) was reined in, and the musical performance unfolded more smoothly. As Rodolfo, Cuban tenor Raúl Melo offered pinpoint vocal precision; Ines Salazar's demure Mimì couldn't keep up with him. Donata D'Annunzio Lombardi, who had sung Musetta the previous evening despite pre-performance announcements of ill health, returned with a much stronger showing. Ensemble work, too, was much tighter, with Marcin Bronkoski's Marcello, Guy Bonfiglio's Schaunard and Brian Jauhianinen's Colline literally revelling in bohemian bonhomie -- sparked, perhaps, by the fact that this was the final night of the run.
The remaining elements of the production seemed entirely of a piece. The Shanghai Opera House Chorus looked remarkably Parisian in Otello Camponeschi and Fabrizio Onali's costumes. Stage director Maurizio di Mattia also designed a lighting scheme that ingeniously illuminated the late Camillo Parravicini's set design, fashioning from its flat-sheet painting a convincingly three-dimensional world.
This season, the most striking improvement in the festival's opera offerings was in its use of supertitles. Whereas translations in Hong Kong and Macao have generally been no better than the subtitles in Hong Kong films, this year's festival made use of a translation provided by Universal Music, which recently commissioned quality renderings of repertory opera librettos into a handful of Asian languages for its Decca and Deutsche Grammophon DVD releases. In accordance with Macao's lingering three-language requirement for all public events, the English and Portuguese translations ran horizontally above the stage, while the Chinese ran vertically at either side, following the conventions of Cantonese opera. This particular framing offered this Bohème, an opera filled with Parisians and written in Italian, an entirely new level of internationalism.
KEN SMITH
BUENOS AIRES In a self-consciously intellectual season, pretty much deprived of popular Italian operas, Teatro Colón's new production of L'Elisir d'Amore (Sept. 27) was refreshing. However, though the production was good, the performance rarely surpassed the merely satisfactory, especially in Act I, which ended with scant applause and no curtain calls. But things improved during Act II, which ended with the audience's enthusiastic (and disproportionate) acclaim.
Raúl Giménez was a discreet Nemorino, not rich in expressive resources and with a voice slightly reminiscent of Tito Schipa's in the middle, but with less nuance and volume. His "Quanto è bella" went for nothing, and he sang "Una furtiva lagrima" too intimately, too pianissimo and with rather dry high notes; the result was scarcely touching. Best in the cast was Paula Almerares, endowed with the ideal means and temperament for Adina, a part she sang with musicality and beautiful color. Though some top notes were rather cautiously emitted at the beginning of the opera, in Act II she sang freely and radiantly, particularly in "Prendi, per me sei libero."
Gustavo Gilbert proved a pallid, unconvincing Belcore. Luis Gaeta, a solid baritone (Dulcamara), hasn't the rich lower range and comic expression of a true basso buffo, but he tried his best and presented a credible character, especially in the duets, and poured forth high notes unheard even from great Dulcamaras such as Salvatore Baccaloni.
Reinaldo Censabella conducted in the best Donizettian tradition, reaching a fine balance between pit and stage, with remarkable clarity and precision in the big, Rossinian concertanti. Carlos Palacios's staging was visually pleasing, his set design inspired by Van Gogh landscapes. However, Palacios betrayed a tendency to indulge grotesque effects, dressing Dulcamara as a clown, for example.
EDUARDO ARNOSI
COPENHAGEN Northern Europeans can't help but smile -- and not without condescension -- at American perceptions of opera productions here, which tend to be interpretive rather than merely illustrative, psychologically insightful rather than merely representative. Europeans shrug good-naturedly at the Disney-fied tastes of American audiences.
Royal Danish Opera's new production of Massenet's Werther wiped the smirks off a few faces, however. Every American prejudice concerning contrived Regietheater was confirmed in Belgian director Guy Joostens's mise-en-scène. This opera is little more than overblown Romanticist rhetoric itself, and Joosten clearly despises Massenet and his Goethian melodrama. At every turn, the action was twisted into a minor key: the whole of the relatively harmless Act I was turned into grim picture of a morally corrupt Biedermeier culture, doomed to be suffocate in its own depravity. When lovely young Sophie got to sing her little ditty in Act II, it ended, predictably, with the young girl in tears, flowers strewn all over the floor. The goodnatured Bailiff became the baddie to end all baddies, drinking incessantly and manhandling his youngest daughter with clearly incestuous intent. By the first intermission, who could help but feel very, very tired?
Goethe himself was no stranger to the stifling petit-bourgeoisie, and his Die Leiden des Jungen Werther (The Sorrows of Young Werther) is nothing if not an attack on contemporary German smugness. Yet there was no evidence Joosten had bothered even to read Goethe, much less listen to Massenet's music.
With the obvious exception of Carmen, French opera has never taken hold with Danish audiences -- notwithstanding a brilliant production of Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites a few seasons ago and a passable production of Thomas's Hamlet (mounted as a showcase for Danish baritone Bo Skovhus). Musically tentative and lacking poignancy, this Werther seemed unlikely to advance the cause, though the company hired two alleged masters of the idiom, Plasson père et fils, Michel and Emmanuel, to alternate in the pit. The performance of Michel did not win over this listener -- yet even on record, Werther often works beautifully. Just listen to the evocative sounds, the ambience of Vladimir Jurowski's performance on CD (RCA Red Seal 743221-58224-2). By contrast, Plasson produced a lot of sound, some heavy Germanic bombast, but none of the required lyricism.
Local tenor Niels Jørgen Riis had a go at the title role, though it would have been better left until the distant future. He found no point of psychological identification with the young poet; his Werther remained a pompous fool, and his very reasonable lyric tenor lacks the plangency, top notes and color to do justice to the role musically. He does phrase elegantly enough, however.
As with everything she touches these days, Randi Stene's performance as Charlotte had an inner glow and a conviction the rest of the production lacked. Her instrument again proved glorious, a full-throated, rounded, juicy mezzo with myriad color patterns. But directed to sit without moving or blinking, a hypnotized victim of the times, she resembled a deer in the headlights.
MICHAEL BO
GRAZ Director G. H. Seebach brought the action of Verdi's Don Carlo forward to 1920s Spain in his new production for Graz (seen Oct. 19). The Monk, dressed in black, prowled through some scenes, and monks in white observed other scenes through concealed windows in Hartmut Schörghofer's unit set, two large, skewed pillars with a patterned surround that only opened a short way to show the palace garden or to let in the rebellious crowd. This posed an obvious problem in staging the auto-da-fé, a problem chillingly resolved with projections of May Day parades as the crowd cheered, and images of an atomic cloud and other demonstrations of man's inhumanity to man during the heretics' march. The confrontation between Filippo and his son was also filmed, the whole being Carlo's dream. The Monk was clearly not Charles V but Philip's agent, killing Eboli and Carlo at the opera's close and giving Elisabetta the knife for her suicide. The introduction to Filippo's monologue was accompanied by a steamy scene between him and Eboli, who remained with him throughout -- not quite the desolate loneliness portrayed in the music. Other shortcomings were less significant.
Philippe Jordan's conducting was outstanding. Every strand in the score was individually shaped, and the whole was a true dialogue with the singers. He clearly understands voices and their problems, and he ensured that all the technically dangerous moments were well prepared to give maximum support. Never once did he drown out a singer -- nor, on the other hand, did he neglect the orchestral climaxes.
Tamar Iveri offered a beautifully phrased Elisabetta, with lovely unforced tone. Jorge Perdigon's rather tight-voiced Carlo really developed from a self-pitying, hysterical, near madman to a man with a new-found mission, while Andrea Silvestrelli's huge, poorly focused bass suited the director's view of Filippo as a brutal dictator. Malgorzata Malewska was a persuasive Eboli, James Westman a pale Posa and Konstantin Sfiris a stolid Inquisitor. From all the singers, Seebach got excellent acting and crystal-clear diction, making this one of the most dramatically compelling productions I have seen in a long time.
CHRISTOPHER NORTON-WELSH
CONCERTS & RECITALS
NEW YORK CITY If I may steal Mark Twain's remark about Wagner's music, one came away from the American Symphony Orchestra's concert performance of Die Aegyptische Helena at Avery Fisher Hall (Oct. 6) convinced that this penultimate Richard Strauss--Hugo von Hofmannsthal opera is better than it sounded that afternoon. Although picking away at all-too-real flaws in the work of this at least partly pick-up ensemble and its uncommonly brainy conductor, Leon Botstein (whose day job is the presidency of arts-friendly Bard College) is a blood-sport among New York critics, Botstein's notable success some years ago with the film-score version of Der Rosenkavalier and, more recently, with Strauss's Die Liebe der Danae suggested that similar results might be achieved with the almost universally underrated fantasy Helena. But those hopes were not answered at this performance.
Keep in mind what Botstein and crew had to work with. Hofmannsthal's libretto, which plays marital war-games with the in-this-case fibbing notion (adopted also by Euripides) that Paris had unknowingly abducted a "phantom" Helen, while the real glamour-queen waited out the Trojan War in Egyptian seclusion. In the opera, Helen's Spartan spouse, Menelaus, goes rather nutty, and under various untimely, beneficent magic spells, he imagines having killed and re-killed both Helen and Paris. The magic, not to mention a happy ending, is provided by Aithra, an Egyptian princess and girlfriend of the sea-god Poseidon. But it's really Helen's courage and faith in her marriage that cure Menelaus of his murderous madness. Many have deemed all this quite silly and have pitied Strauss for obediently setting it to dried-up music But a careful look at libretto and score shows Hofmannsthal in his most succinctly poetic vein and Strauss creating a music-drama full of almost shockingly swift morphings among hate, jealousy, bravery. love and mystery.
Five years after the 1928 Dresden premiere, Strauss was persuaded to streamline and reorder sequences in the second of the opera's two long acts, but the original version still gets done and proves satisfying; Botstein chose it. But he hit the entire opera rather hard, letting the more extroverted moments (an army arriving by hoof and by crook, a noisy storm) have their say but failing to shape the mystery and eroticism gently and persuasively. Thus, the strings had to scream their rapture; Deborah Voigt (sensible casting as Helen) had to fight her way through the opera's post-coital hit-soliloquy, "Zweite Brauchtnacht"; Celena Shafer articulated Aithra's giddy fioritura but was given little chance to make it sparkle. Carl Tanner seemed under-equipped for Menelaus until late in the game, at which point he wrestled afresh with some of Strauss's very best tenor music -- and won. Mezzo Jill Grove had a good, plushy time as Aithra's Omniscient Sea-shell; Tamara Mesic, Elizabeth Batton and Eric Cutler also contributed conspicuously to the afternoon's assets. There was an on-the-spot taping for commercial release but, one hopes, with lots of patching-up.
LEIGHTON KERNER
Opera Orchestra of New York started its new season with a concert reading of Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles at Carnegie Hall (Oct. 20). The work requires a quartet of soloists, three of whom were making a company debut. The St. Petersburg-born Daniil Shtoda, who has made a considerable reputation already at age twenty-five (about the same age as Bizet when he wrote Pêcheurs), held the focus of attention in the notoriously taxing role of Nadir. Unlike historic precursors of the Russian school of lyric tenors (Smirnoff, Kozovsky, Lemeshev), Shtoda sang with neither sweetness nor blandishing ardor. Instead, he offered the virtues of the current generation of light Rossini tenors, his voice clear and steady, sustaining a finely etched line, confidently focused to carry above the orchestra. In the role's most exposed moment, "Je crois entendre encore," a French-style head tone, with softer dynamics, would have been welcome, but Shtoda's more forthright, Italianate delivery made a clean, fresh impact.
In his Act II duet with Darina Takova as Léïla, he took on a bleating tone, but when the soprano repeated the same melody, she gave it smooth and supple contours. Indeed, ranging from richness to light, graceful agility, Takova proved stylistically the best-qualified singer of the evening for this type of music. Linguistically, the most idiomatic was the third newcomer, Jean-Luc Chaignaud, who has the advantage of being French. Chaignaud's baritone (almost a bass-baritone), at first tight and brassy, later summoned the emotional bite required of Zurga -- a dramatically heavy role, as revealed in the exciting Act II finale. His big scene came in Act III, where his inner torment and lyric flow complemented Bizet's Berlioz-like melodic declamation, though with a stray pitch here and there. The one company veteran, Brazilian bass Luiz-Ottavio Faria, reined in his big voice to sing conversationally in Act II, saving his full fury for Nourabad's denunciation of the other three characters in the final scene.
Except for an unexplained pause partway into Act I, the outsize OONY forces under Eve Queler held together with professional assurance, if without much subtlety of phrasing, insinuating grace or rhythmic verve. The grandiose moments, redolent of Spontini and Meyerbeer, went off with the most panache. Queler, ever practical in negotiating compromises with textual purity (e.g. her Italian-language La Favorite or flashy alternate version of Lucrezia Borgia), did a traditional take on Act III, always a problem child until the cleaned-up edition of 1975. OONY's version, about which the program notes offered not a word, included a trio ("O lumière sainte") modeled on the famous one in Faust. Apparently, this was composed by Benjamin Godard for interpolation in Bizet's work. So the audience got a bit more than it paid for -- and nobody minded that.
JOHN W. FREEMAN
The triple-star constellation of soprano Angela Denoke, bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff and pianist/maestro Daniel Barenboim gathered at Carnegie Hall on October 14 for a slightly irregular reading of Hugo Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch. This delicious collection of folk poetry settings is not a narrative cycle in the manner of Schubert's Die Schöne Müllerin and Winterreise; it is, rather, a dialogue (of sorts) for male and female voice about the shifting moods of love denied, love accepted, love-in-progress -- and love thrown away with both hands. This performance arranged the songs in fairly strict female/male alteration, so that each song read as a reaction to the one preceeding it. Not a bad idea in theory, but with no director credited, and staging kept to a minimum -- a chair for each of the singers, with Quasthoff's placed on a small platform -- the sparks delivered never really caught fire, and dramatic focus was fuzzy. The bag of staging tricks got emptied fast; by the third time that Denoke had finished a song with a mock-petulant cross back to her perch, her knees snapping crossed as she thumped into her chair on the last note of a song, any pretense of dramatic spontaneity was exhausted. The performance seemed more like a tennis match in progress than a love affair.
Quasthoff was in superb voice, contributing several moments of heart-stopping beauty, as in a magically rapt "Schon streckt' ich aus im Bett," a muscular, stentorian "Wie soll ich frölich sein" and a honeyed, irresistible "Nun lass uns Frieden schliessen," its last lines read with the sophisticated hauteur of great light comedian. All of his texts were sung with a master colorist's surety: in "Und willst du deinen Liebsten sterben sehen," Quasthoff made the "Goldfäden" really gleam; in "Sterb ich, so hüllt in Blumen meine Glieder," the flowers bloomed in the palest shades of grey. Denoke lacked her partner's authority, but her readings were bright, energetic and intelligent: "Man sagt mir, deine Mutter woll' es nicht," daringly bold, with a lightning-quick shift in mood on the last two lines; "Ich esse nun mein Brot nicht trocken mehr" deftly playful. During Quasthoff's "O wüsstest du, wievel ich deinetwegen," Denoke's dry, laconic listening was as much a part of the performance as her partner's neatly wheedling vocal. But more than once, Denoke's tone turned glassy under pressure, a fault that spoiled her otherwise admirable "Ich hab in Penna." Barenboim offfered admirably restrained support, accepting the spotlight with grace in the neatly turned postlude to "Wie lange schon war immer mein Verlangen." But the sum of this Liederbuch was definitely less than the measure of its very talented parts.
Mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is, without question, one of the great singers of her generation. Unfailingly musical, generous of spirit and firm of purpose, blessed with plangent tone and an uncommonly fine ear for languages, Hunt Lieberson plans her recitals with intelligence and care. All of her rare gifts were in evidence and thoroughly marshalled at her Alice Tully Hall program on October 20, but for once this fine artist may have planned things a little too carefully. The program was a connoiseur's grab-bag of items ranging from Handel arias to mélodies and Romantic lieder to Ricky Ian Gordon songs, every piece meticulously considered, exquisitely shaped and rapturously dignified. After about an hour of these beauties, I was starved for something up-tempo to shake things up. Nobody sings with greater joy than this artist, when the spirit moves her; on this afternoon, joy gave way to wistfulness, albeit of the radiant, heroic variety.
Perhaps Hunt Lieberson was thrown off her game by one of the least mannerly audiences I've ever encountered at a New York concert hall. An audience member's sharp, whining hearing aid forced the mezzo to stop a Handel aria in mid-phrase to ask for quiet; a cell phone blasted the beautiful final silence of Gordon's "Let Evening Come"; hacking coughing broke the carefully set mood of a group of German lieder. Hunt Lieberson met all these indignities with miraculous grace and class, and brought some welcome fierceness to the closing set of her program, anchored by an imaginative, brisk "Erlköning." The afternoon ended on a high, with the last of the three encores offered: a slangy, sly, absolutely glorious "I Am Calling You," from the film Bagdad Café.
The Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal made its contribution to Manhattan's Berlioz year observances with an October 26 La Damnation de Faust at Carnegie Hall. The orchestra's exacting long-time maestro, Charles Dutoit, announced as conductor for this and another Carnegie Hall date (an October 27 bill of Ravel's Daphnis and Chloé and Syzmanowski's Symphony No. 3, aka "The Song of the Night") was not on the podium, alas; his connection with the band now severed, thanks to some well-publicized disputes with its members. Also among the missing at Carnegie was Montreal's previously announced Faust, the occasionally wayward but charismatic Giuseppe Sabbatini. Striking Faust's bargain in Sabbatini's stead was Michael Schade, a charming, amiable young lyric tenor who struggled manfully to meet Berlioz's challenges with the required vocal heft. The equally amiable veteran Michel Plasson conducted the performance, pacing his soloists with consideration but holding his chorus and orchestra in somewhat loose union. Ruxandra Dunose, a lissome mezzo, delivered Marguerite's lines with intelligence and fire, hitting her marks confidently in "Le Roi de Thulé" and the scene thirteen duet with Faust, but lacked the weight of voice and intensity needed to put over "D'amour l'ardente flamme." John Relyea, an unusually handsome, youthful Méphistophélès, made a stronger impression than either of his fellow principals, though he was guilty of the occasional growl and grainy tone. Best of the soloists
