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: Who's Afraid of Cardillac?

The Officer (Steven Sanders, l.) confronts Cardillac (Sanford Sylvan, r.) in a tense moment.
Photo from the dress rehearsal of Cardillac by Clive Grainger 
© 2011 Clive Grainger/ Opera Boston

On Friday evening, Opera Boston offered the New England premiere of Paul Hindemith's Cardillac, a rarely performed, but influential German opera. Baritone Sanford Sylvan gave a towering performance in the difficult title role.

Based on Mademoiselle de Scudéri, a story by the writer/composer E.T.A. Hoffmann, Cardillac is an early example of mystery fiction: the story of a goldsmith in the Paris of Louis XIV, who murders his customers in order to resume possession of his jewelry. Although a success at the work's 1926 premiere, Hindemith later revised the opera, adding a final act and softening the title character's sharp edges. The rise of the Nazis and the flight of Hindemith to America consigned Cardillac to obscurity.

The Opera Boston production made a good argument for the unrevised 90-minute Cardillac, playing the three acts without intermission. Director Nic Mumi updated the story to a modern jewelry boutique, some time in the "near future." Erhard Rom's set was dominated by three tilted white flats, surfaces that allowed the actors to cast gigantic shadows at climactic moments. A huge, reversed banner advertising René Cardillac as a "fashion name" like Fendi or Gucci adorned the proscenium. Hi-Def televisions advertised his wares, and a series of sculptures and flying tables raised and lowered, occasionally revealing the corpses of the homicidal jeweler's latest victims.

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. The Canadian baritone controlled the stage every time he was on it, from his interactions with his daughter, to the final confession and death scene.

As Cardillac's Daughter, (in the tradition of many early 20th century German operas, most of the characters are nameless) soprano Sol Kim Bentley sang with a powerful, spirited instrument, never unpleasing to the ear. She was well paired with heroic tenor Steven Sanders as the Officer, a young buck who confronts Cardillac, wanting to woo his daughter, only to be seduced by the lure of gold. Mr. Sanders handled the high tessitura, and had an heroic stage presence. Although his fine instrument vanished for a few bars in the last act, the tenor recovered for a strong finish.

Part of the difficulty of staging Cardillac is in its music, which combines the chromatic complexity of Richard Strauss with the intricate polyphony of Johann Sebastian Bach. By fusing these two clashing styles, Hindemith made that contrast the driving force of his 90-minute score. Cardillac demands heroic effort, not just from the brass (that's the norm in operas of this era) but also from the woodwinds, whose constant commentary on the action forms the backbone of the opera. Newly appointed Opera Boston music director Gil Rose never let the momentum slip, maintaining the air of mystery and intrigue throughout.