Concert Review: The Ignition Sequence

Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

There comes a time in the career of an opera singer where, through either good fortune or exceptional skill, they rise from the ranks of the roster and ignite as a genuine operatic star. For the  Isabel Leonard, 2018-19 at the Metropolitan Opera was that year, where the mezzo-soprano rose to the occasion in three major roles: Marnie, Melisande and Sister Blanche in Dialogues des Carmelites. On Monday night, Ms. Leonard capped a season which featured performances as Marnie, Melisande and Sister Blanche with a performance at Carnegie Hall, accompanied by the MET Orchestra under music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Dialogues des Carmélites

Francis Poulenc's dark opera combines religion, politics and history to devastating effect.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Isabel Leonard is Sister Blanche de la Force in Dialogues des Carmélites.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera. 

The Met ends its season with this grim and brilliant 20th century opera, in its justifiably famous staging by John Dexter. Three performances only.

Opera Review: Something Almost Being Said

The Met revives Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Fixer-upper opportunity: Isabel Leonard and Paul Appleby in Pélleas et Mélisande.
Photo by Karen Almond © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera.

Claude Debussy only wrote one opera. Pélleas et Mélisande (based on a symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck) succeeds by destroying many of the conventions of the genre to which it belongs. On Tuesday night, the Met unveiled its revival of Pélleas, another acid test for its new music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and a younger generation of singers wandering through the hazy, maze-y woods of the mythical kingdom of Allemonde. Here, those woods are represented in a production by Jonathan Miller: a series of big chilly rooms in a manor house, using the Met turntable to cope with the shifting settings and moods.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Pélleas et Melisande

Is it a fairy tale, or a nightmare of domestic violence?
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Melisande at her well. Photo by Marty Sohl © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera.

Lovers of French impressionist music and post-Wagnerian drama should run, not walk to this one.  This is one of the essential revivals of the winter. Pélleas is one of the greatest French works of the 20th century and a true test of the mettle of music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: The Barber of Seville

The Met revives the Barber in "family-friendly" English.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

She's a vipera: Isabel Leonard returns as Rosina in The Barber of Seville.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

Rossini repackaged for the kids: with the most famous comedy in opera trimmed down to a lean 90 minutes. This is the Met's special holiday presentation of Gioachino Rossini's Barber of Seville with the radiant Isabel Leonard returning to the role of Rosina.

Concert Review: The Moon in Your Pocket

A Tribute to Glen Roven at Spectrum.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The conjuror: composer Glen Roven's songs
were celebrated at Spectrum on Thursday night.

The evolution of the modern classical art song did not start in the concert or recital hall. No, the preferred performance venue was at the liederabend ("song evening"), a small-scale, informal salon performance with a singer, a pianist and the music of Schubert, Schumann or later, Brahms and Hugo Wolf. On Thursday night, the New York New Music Collective celebrated a modern song-master, Glen Roven with a program featuring world premieres of two song cycles by the Brooklyn-born composer.

Opera Broadcast Review: A Wedding Under Protest

The Met opens with a new Le Nozze di Figaro.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Times Square broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera's
Le Nozze di Figaro with Ildar Abdrazakov and Marliss Peterson.
 Photo by the author © 2014 Paul J. Pelkonen

Opening night at the Metropolitan Opera is a glitzy, glamorous occasion, with seats in the cavernous auditorium jacked to three times their normal price, an audience of minor celebrities strolling down the red carpet and this year, protestors outside Lincoln Center. Last year, they were against Valery Gergiev, this year they decried the company's planned October  production of the John Adams opera The Death of Klinghoffer.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Figaro's barber shop is back in business.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Tenor Lawrence Brownlee has an issue with the wig department.
Photo from Il Barbiere di Siviglia by Ken Howard © 2007 The Metropolitan Opera.

Although it was a complete and utter fiasco on its opening night in 1816, Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia remains the heavyweight champ among operatic comedies. The adventures of Figaro and company have held the stage in one form or another for 198 years, and remains the composer's most famous work.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Così fan tutte

James Levine returns to conducting opera with Mozart's comedy.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Three Sopranos: Isabel Leonard (left) Danielle De Niese (center) and Susanna Philips
in a scene from the Metropolitan Opera's revival of Così fan tutte. 
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

Are women really "like that?"(Maybe.)

Are men really pigs? (Probably.)

Is James Levine really back? (Definitely!)

Opera Review: A Short Scissor Cut

The Met's trimmed-down Barber of Seville.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."--J. R. R. Tolkien

Opera is a drag! The cast (l.r.: Rodion Pogossov, Alek Shrader, Isabel Leonard, John del Carlo) in Act II of
Rossini's The Barber of Seville. Photo by Ken Howard © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

In 1969, the Italian musicologist Alberto Zedda stewarded a critical edition of Rossini's 1816 masterpiece, The Barber of Seville. This edition clarified and codified the composer's original intentions, putting lost arias back in their right and proper place and ensuring the future of this beloved comic opera for years to come.

Given the Metropolitan Opera's penchant for textual accuracy under the reign of music director James Levine, it was surprising that the company chose Barber as this year's "family-friendly" holiday presentation.  This new edition of the score (by J. D. McClatchy) translates the show into English and cuts it by an hour. The cuts are occasionally seamless, but more often brutal.

Mr. McClatchy axes two-thirds of the famous Overture and halves most of the arias, omitting repeats or having singers start numbers at the cabaletta. Gone: Don Basilio's bass aria "La calunnia", Berta's "Il vecchioto" and whole chunks of Figaro's "Largo al factotum." Musically speaking, the effect is like a skilled amputation--you're not supposed to look too closely. The translation of Cesare Sterbini's original text is generally well done and sing-able, although the patter songs are awkward.

Opera Review: Practical Magic

Thomas Adés' The Tempest opens at the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Ariel--aerialist: Audrey Luna flies high in The Tempest.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

In a dreary Metropolitan Opera fall season dominated so far by (dull-to-competent) revivals, the New York premiere of Thomas Adés' opera The Tempest (seen from the very last row of the house on opening night) provides a sorely needed breath of musical and dramatic innovation.