The Year in Reviews: The Best Singers of 2011

Eleven individual performances worth mentioning.

By Paul Pelkonen.

Sanford Sylvan as Cardillac.
Photo by Clive Grainger for
Opera Boston

We continue our ramble through the back pages of this blog with a year-end look at the eleven best opera performances of 2011. Again, this is sorted chronologically, so it's a pure (but weird) coincidence that the first five entries are male and the latter six are female. (No sexist, I.) And there's no organization by voice-type either. Just really good singing and acting.
Enjoy.

Kevin Burdette as Death/The Loudspeaker 
(The Emperor of Atlantis at Boston Lyric Opera.)
"Kevin Burdette made an impressive company debut as Death, mugging with John Cleese-like abandon and delivering his noble, impressive music with flair.  Mr. Burdette doubled in the role of the Loudspeaker. This allowed director David Schweizer to re-imagne the dialogue between the Emperor and his underlings as a series of prank phone calls as Death repeatedly "punked" the Emperor."


Alexander Lewis as Vacal
(The Bartered Bride at Juilliard Opera.)
As played by Alexander Lewis, Vacal's handicap became a source of charm, and the opera's most uplifting moment comes when the singer overcomes his alalia syllabaris and sings out. When he starts dancing in the third act, it is a moment of real joy.


Sanford Sylvan as Cardillac
(Cardillac at Opera Boston.)
"Sanford Sylvan showed exceptional versatility and range in the title part, taking his baritone down to the depths of Cardillac's depravity and floating pianissimo high notes when needed. His portrayal made the jeweler's decision to kill his customers seem almost reasonable, pulling the audience in as co-conspirators as he preyed upon the elite."

Alan Held as Wozzeck
(Wozzeck at the Metropolitan Opera.)
"Mr. Held sang with dark nobility in the opening act of the opera, creating a defensive barrier around the character that was slowly torn down. Things shattered completely when he was cuckolded in the second act, and then beaten brutally by the Drum Major. In the final act, he brought whoops of despair and madness into his performance, making his final drowning a poignant, pathetic spectacle."

Jonas Kaufmann as Siegmund
(Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera.)
Mr. Kaufmann's sturdy stage presence and perfect German diction make him the best Siegmund to sing at this house in many years. As he seized both the sword and his sister Sieglinde, his final cry of "so blühe denn, Wälsungen-Blut!" rose to an ecstatic, swelling high note. Then, he held it, riding over the crashing wave of the orchestra and drawing a storm of applause.

Isabel Bayrakdarian as (the vixen) Sharp-Ears
(The Cunning Little Vixen at the New York Philharmonic.)
Ms. Bayrakdarian displayed an agile soprano instrument with a pleasing tone and the right amounts of light and shade. She also manipulated the complex costume (including a nearly prehinsile fox-tail) easily, coping with the challenging choreography on the somewhat limited stage.

Yva Kihlberg as Selma Jezková
(Selma Jezková at Lincoln Center Festival)
"The long, arching phrases sung by her character recall the writing of Richard Strauss, and the sheer animal panic as she is marched to the scaffold recalled the frantic fate of a certain Puccini heroine. This was a devastating performance combined with difficult physical acting, particularly in the heart-stopping stunt of Selma's execution."

Meagan Miller as Danaë
(Die Liebe der Danaë at Bard Summerscape.)
"The soprano part is both long and treacherous, all the way up to a high C# at the very end. Meagan Miller, a past grand finalist at the Metropolitan Opera's vocal competitions, handled the part with power and beauty of tone."

Jennifer Rosetti as Zerbinetta
(Ariadne auf Naxos at dell'arte Opera Ensemble)
"Jennifer Rossetti met the challenges of the ten-minute "Grossmachtige Prinzessin", including the high F notes called for on the fioratura passages. More importantly, she imbued the part with an easy sexuality and had good chemistry with the four players in the troupe."

Anna Netrebko as Anna Bolena
(Anna Bolena at the Metropolitan Opera.)
"Ms. Netrebko is currently a jewel among international opera stars: she is a woman of great pulchritude, and no mean singer. But what impressed in Anna was how the soprano brought dramatic weight to the small, seemingly insignificant lines of dialogue that drive the plot forward. Her attention to detail helped elevate Anna from bel canto pot-boiler to the realm of music drama."

Eve Gigliotti as Ruth
(Dark Sisters at Gotham Chamber Opera.)
"We mourn when she tells how her children died. And when she tries to follow Eliza and leave the ranch, we grieve when she throws herself from a cliff. This is not a Tosca suicide. It is more along the lines of Butterfly."

Visit the rest of the 2011 Year in Reviews, our account of the year that went to "'11".


Contact the author: E-mail Superconductor editor Paul Pelkonen.

Opera Review: Cashing the Czech

The Bartered Bride Marries Met and Juilliard.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Layla Claire and Alexander Lewis in Act II of The Bartered Bride.
Photo © 2011 The Juilliard School/Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera's new collaboration with the Juilliard School got off to a winning start with Stephen Wadsworth's production of The Bartered Bride, seen Thursday night at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. The Czech opera was performed in a new English translation by J. D. McClatchy, and incorporated 20th century references into the libretto.

Bedrich Smetana's comedy of small-town romance and arranged marriages has been away from New York stages for the last 15 years. This thrilling performance, conducted by James Levine made this writer wonder why we've had to wait so long. Maestro Levine led an enthusiastic reading that brought out the charm, laughter and joy in this underrated score. And he was a little caught up in it: the Met's music director was heard merrily singing along with the score.


He was helped by a fine young cast, led by soprano Layla Claire as Marenka, the bride-to-be who finds herself at the eye of a romantic hurricane when her planned marriage to Jenik is thrown over in favor of an arranged match with the son of Mischa, a rich farmer to whom her father owes money.

This is a complex, multi-dimensional role with a high tessitura and a number of rapid-fire emotional changes that can challenge any singing actress. Ms. Claire mined the rich comic vein of the score but also generated pathos, particularly in the heartbreaking spotlight aria that serves as the (serious) climax to the final act.

Marenka is deeply in love with Jenik, (tenor Paul Appleby), who manipulates events throughout the opera to produce a happy result. Mr. Appleby brought a brash attitude to the part and a pleasing tenor with light baritonal coloring. His performance took wing in his rapid-fire "contract duet" with the marriage broker Kecal, played with great comic gusto by bass Jordan Bisch.

Jenik's competition is Vacal, the most challenging part in this opera. Smetana was a fearless innovator, and he created what might be the only tenor role to be hampered by a musical stutter. As played by Alexander Lewis, Vacal's handicap became a source of charm, and the opera's most uplifting moment comes when the singer overcomes his alalia syllabaris and sings out. When he starts dancing in the third act, it is a moment of real joy.

Mr. Wadsworth's staging moved the action to a chic Czech café, sometime in the 20th century. The choristers slowly change from street garb to traditional kroje costumes. When a "real Czechoslovakian" circus hits the sleepy little town in the third act, the whole production takes a welcome turn for the surreal, complete with dancing bears, a bearded lady (dancer Miles Mykkanen, on point, like a ballerina) and a remarkable contortionist (Jacob Stainback).

This thrilling revival of one of the greatest operatic comedies of the 19th century plays for only one more performancer, but fear not, opera lovers, it's slated for the Met--sometime in 2014.