Opera Review: Disenchantment

The Met revives its fairy tale twin bill of Tchaikovsky and Bartók.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Two sides of marriage. Left, Matthew Polenzani and Sonya Yoncheva in Iolanta. Right, Angela Denoke and Gerald
Finley as Mr. and Mrs. Bluebeard. Photos by Marty Sohl © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera. Collage by the author.

Part of the problem with short one-act operas is figuring out how to pair them off. On Monday night, the Met offered its second performance this season of a very unconventional double bill: Tchaikovsky's fairy tale Iolanta and Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle. The first is an idealized boy-meets-girl story, originally written to be paired with The Nutcracker. The second is Bartók's only opera: a chilling portrait of married life gone very wrong. The production, which premiered in Warsaw, is the brain-child of director Mariusz Trelinski, and this performance marks its first revival since 2015.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Iolanta/Duke Bluebeard's Castle

Two fairy tales of love and terror returns with new divas.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Either this is a scene from Duke Bluebeard's Castle....or the 1 train is taking forever.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera.

The pervading motif of young women in the throes of self-discovery and danger ties together this double-bill, one of the most eagerly anticipated revivals of the coming Met season.

Opera Review: Lust in the Dust

The Met spends its money on Thaïs.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Unholy: mad monk Athanaël (Gerald Finley, right) obsesses over the tide character (Aileen Pérez) in Thaïs. 
Photo by Chris Lee © 2017 The Metropolitan Opera.

Jules Massenet's Thaïs is the operatic equivalent of a rare orchid, an exotically colored, carefully cultivated hothouse plant that is brought out only when an opera company believes it has the right soprano for the difficult title part. On Saturday afternoon, the Metropolitan Opera gave the first performance of this season's revival. Here, the stars were soprano Ailyn Pérez stepping into the leading lady's gilded sandals, and baritone of the moment Gerald Finley singing Athanaël, the troubled monk whose cilice may be on a little too tight.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Thaïs

The most famous French opera with an umlaut in the title.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

You're nobody in Alexandria unless you live in a house with a really big door.
Photo from the Met's last production of Thats by Ken Howard, courtesy the Metropolitan Opera.

The Met revives Massenet's most sensuous opera as a vehicle for soprano Ailyn Pérez and stud baritone Gerald Finley. Thaïs is a lush example of Massenet using an exotic setting to tell a fairly prosaic story of love and obsession. The twist is that the "bad girl" courtesan finds true redemption while the religious, sex-obsessed monk goes down in flames.

Opera Review: This Swiss Doesn't Miss

The Metropolitan Opera (finally) brings back Guillaume Tell.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Lone warrior: Gerald Finley as William Tell in the Met's Guillaume Tell.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2016 The Metropolitan Opera.

It can be argued that Giacchino Rossini's Guillaume Tell is his finest score. It is a sprawling four-act portrait of the Swiss people rising up in rebellion and throwing off the yokes of their Austrian masters, full of musical invention and emotional moments that move the soul. Rigorous vocal demands and the problems of staging an opera set mostly in the Swiss Alps and featuring two boat trips and two huge storm scenes, have combined to keep Tell from the stage of the Met. The company last produced this show in 1931.

That all changed on Tuesday night.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Guillaume Tell

For the first time in almost a century, the Met takes aim at Rossini's last opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A climactic moment from Act III of Guillaume Tell.
Photo by Ruth Walz for the Dutch National Opera. © 2016 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera finally grants the wishes of many Rossini fans (this writer included) with the first new production of William Tell at the theater since 1931. For the first time at the Met, the opera will be sung in its original French.

Opera Review: Pride. Prejudice and a Zombie

Gerald Finley is Don Giovanni from Glyndebourne.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Gerald Finley and Luca Pisaroni in Don Giovanni.
Photo by Bill Cooper © 2011 EMI Classics/Glyndebourne Festival.

Mozart's Don Giovanni has long been burdened with the title of the "greatest" of all operas. And yet, it remains an elusive subject for directors who seek to bring something new to the tale of a rakish nobleman and a dinner date gone horribly wrong. This performance from the Glyndebourne Festival (originally released by EMI, broadcast by Medici.TV and viewed on Amazon Prime Video on Demand) preserves the production by the team of director Jonathan Kent and Paul Brown that graced the Glyndebourne Festival in 2010.

Opera Review: The Lockdown

The New York Philharmonic exercises Il Prigioniero.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Alan Gilbert. Photo by Chris Lee © 2011 The New York Philharmonic.

It is a universal conceit that no worthy Italian operas were written after Turandot, the last (and unfinished) opera of Giacomo Puccini. The development of so-called "serial" or modern music and the rise of Fascism in Italy conspired to put an end to four centuries of that country's most famous art form.

DVD Review: The Shoe Must Go On

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg from Glyndebourne.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Cobbler Hans Sachs (Gerald Finley (r.) tries to get some work done as
Beckmesser (Johann Martin Kränzle) warbles in Act II of
Die Meistersinger. Image from the Glyndebourne Festival © 2011 OpusArte.

This DVD performance (released on two discs or a single Blu-Ray by OpusArte) was shot in June 2011 at the Glyndebourne Festival. It is just the second Wagner opera to be performed at Glyndebourne following a 2003 Tristan und Isolde. (It marks a collaboration between this house, San Francisco Opera and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, who will mount this staging in February 2012.)The show features a youthful, energetic cast who exhibit a thorough dramatic involvement in this vast comedy, anchored by the Sachs of Canadian baritone Gerald Finley.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Another cancellation for the Met's Don Giovanni.

Dinner guest: Bryn Terfel.
Photo © 2012 Deutsche Grammophon.

In October of 2011, one of the biggest stories coming out of the Met involved Mariusz Kwiecien, who was replaced in the title role of the Met's new production of Don Giovanni after being injured in a rehearsal. He was replaced by Peter Mattei, and the show went on.

Now there are problems with the second cast. Bass John Relyea, scheduled to sing eight performances as Leporello, has bowed out of the production, according to a report on The Wagnerian's blog. Mr. Relyea's doctor ordered the singer to rest his voice. 

Their replacements for the upcoming shows will be Kyle Ketelsen, who will sing the first four performances, and none other than Bryn Terfel, who will sing the last four shows in March. 

Mr. Terfel, last seen as the Wanderer in the Met's new production of Wagner's Siegfried made his early reputation with this opera, singing and recording Masetto (with Arnold Östman) the Don (with Sir Georg Solti) and Leporello (with Claudio Abbado.) He first sang Leporello at the Met in 1995, and the Don in 2000 

This run of the company's new Michael Grandage production pairs the singers with Canadian baritone Gerald Finley in the title role. The cast also includes Matthew Polenzani as Don Ottavio, Marina Rebeka as Donna Anna and Isabel Leonard as Zerlina. James Morris (another famous Met Wotan) is the Commendatore. Andrew Davis conducts.

Don Giovanni returns on Feb. 21.

Recording Recommendation

Don Giovanni is one of the most frequently recorded Mozart operas, and many fine recordings are available. Here are three that I like.

Vienna Philharmonic cond. Josef Krips (Decca, 1955)

Don Giovanni: Cesare Siepi

Leporello: Fernando Corena

Donna Anna: Suzanne Danco

Donna Elvira: Lisa della Casa

Il Commendatore: Kurt Böhme

One of the first stereo recordings of this opera, the Krips recording captures singers of a different age in the fertile ground of Vienna, just a decade after the war. Siepi and Corena play the roles of master and servant with gusto, and the conducting is terrific.

Chamber Orchestra of Europe cond. Claudio Abbado (DG, 1998)

Don Giovanni: Simon Keenlyside

Leporello: Bryn Terfel

Donna Anna Carmela Remigio

Donna Elvira: Soile Isokoski

Il Commendatore: Matti Salminen

This was Bryn Terfel's third recording of the opera, and his first as Leporello. (He was the Don for Solti's recording, and also recorded Masetto.) The Welsh baritone seems much more comfortable as the Don's slippery servant, and gives a great reading of this part. Abbado's conducting is spot on, as is Matti Salminen's terrifying Commendatore.

Concert Review: Philharmonic's Elijah Turns a Prophet

Gerald Finley

The New York Philharmonic made a triumphant return to Avery Fisher Hall this week with Mendelssohn's Elijah. This powerful Old Testament oratorio from the pen of Felix Mendelssohn has been a Philharmonic specialty since 1952, when Dmitri Mitropoulos brought the work to Carnegie Hall.

Mendelssohn presents Elijah's story as a series of operatic confrontations: as the prophet battles King Ahab, Queen Jezebel, and in the scene on Mount Horeb, he confronts God and his own faith.

Throughout, the composer displays his command of harmony and invention, from the complex choral passages to the soaring arias, to the final ascent of Elijah into heaven in a whirlwind, an orchestral effect generated by the Philharmonic strings.

Gerald Finley sang the title role. The Canadian baritone renewed a creative partnership with Mr. Gilbert that started with the opera Doctor Atomic. Mr. Finley is a Canadian baritone with an impressive, resonant instrument. He is a capable actor, and his Elijah became a three-dimensional character, contrasting rock-solid faith in the first half with the spiritual crisis of the second.


The New York Choral Artists, under the leadership of Joseph Flummerfelt, sang the key choral passages of the work with power and warmth. Soprano Twyla Robinson sang most of the angelic voices in the score, with a pleasing voice that rose to celestial heights. Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote was particularly fierce in the role of Jezebel. Tenor Allan Clayton split duties between the roles of Ahab and Obadiah, singing with a high, lyric voice.

Elijah has been part of the Philharmonic's repertory for almost six decades, and enjoyed a revival in 1997 under the baton of Kurt Masur. Mr. Gilbert's performance on the podium was subtle and flexible. He colored in Mendelssohn's detailed orchestration and coordinating the oratorio's complex moments with a wrist-flick of his baton.