Dry Land: The Met's Boccanegra on DVD

This Deutsche Grammophon DVD of Boccanegra has been available for a while now. Recently, I decided to add it to the collection, replacing my old worn out tape of the same performance from Channel 13. This is a video of the Met's current production, designed with some success by Giancarlo del Monaco, son of the great tenor Mario. Although it presents a lovely Mediterranean setting, and a truly whopping Council Chamber--damn that's a big set--it lacks one important element crucial to this opera. At no point can you see the ocean. This is a problem for an opera that is a) about a corsair, a kind of pirate b) features "sea pictures" throughout its score and c) is set in the very aquatic city of Genoa, Italy



That quibble aside, this is for the most part, a superior Boccanegra. It's shame that budget cuts prevented Levine and orchestra from making a full studio recording as part of their (terminated) Verdi series for Sony. From the night-time opening to the opera's moody conclusion, the Met orchestra plays with razor-sharp precision, especially in the woodwind textures that give this most beautiful of Verdi scores its unique nautical feel. The house chorus is also heard at their best in this performance. In an opera that is about political power as well as private struggles, they provide a noble vox populi throughout the actin,

This performance features three very strong baritone/bass roles. First off, Vladimir Chernov's dynamic turn in the title role. This is the singer at his brief height in the 1990s. He cuts an imposing onstage figure, and rises admirably to the considerable vocal challenges presented by this opera. Even better is Robert Lloyd in the role of Fiesco, the proud nobleman who swears vengeance upon Boccanegra (for seducing and impregnating his daughter--then losing the baby. Long story.) Lloyd, always an underrated bass, positively nails "Il lacerato spirito", making this impressive aria drip with heartbreak. The third baritone is Bruno Pola, who thrives like a Genoese Danny DeVito in the villainous role of Paolo, the power broker who gets Boccanegra on the Genoese throne and then plots his death. Pola is at his best in the hushed opening scene, singing his ballade with flair.

While the three deep-voiced gentlemen rock the house in this performance, less can be said for the all-star pair of lovers who make up the opera's secondary plot. Placido Domingo is in excellent voice here as Gabriele Adorno, singing with sweetness and a faint metallic ring that characterizes many of his Verdi recordings. Opposite him is Kiri te Kanawa, the New Zealand songbird. She is generally excellent in the lighter Verdi roles, and this is her second recording as Amelia (following a recently reissued 1989 Decca set with Georg Solti). Unfortunately, the camera shows these young lovers to be miscast physically--Domingo and te Kanawa are just too old for a pair of characters that are all about ardent youth. Happily though, te Kanawa has good chemistry with Vladimir Chernov--the father-daughter duet is sung here as a work of heart-melting sentiment under James Levine's expert baton.

The Rant: Bayreuth on the Hudson?

New York opera lovers, and particularly that strange, obsessed, (occasionally helmeted) subset who love the works of Richard Wagner, are a spoiled bunch. We have been ever since the arrival of the production team of Otto Schenk and Gunther Scheider-Siemssen, whose productions of the major Wagner operas have provided the Met with a complete Wagner renaissance and a steady flow of box office, thanks to periodic revivals of the duo's spectacular 1989 production of the Ring Cycle.



Starting with their 1978 production of Tannhauser, the Schenk/Schneider-Siemssen team went on to stage Lohengrin, The Ring, Parsifal and Meistersinger. Each production was designed and staged in a thoroughly traditional style that would have made Cosima Wagner proud. Their underground caverns looked like caverns. Dwarves skulked, Grail knights marched and Nuremberg burghers paraded in proud order. These productions (with the exception of the Lohengrin have been popular and long-running, filling the theater on a regular basis. The Schenk/Schneider-Siemssen Ring was filmed with great success, exposing a whole new generation of listeners to Wagner, including this writer.

Yet twilight is setting on this world of realistic Wagner productions. Robert Wilson's stark Lohengrin restaged the legend of the swan knight with minimal sets and light-boxes. Next year's run of the Ring will be the last for this venerable production. In 2010, the Met will explore a brave new Ring, designed by French-Canadian iconoclast Robert LePage, whose past credits include the Lorin Maazel opera 1984 at Covent Garden, numerous stagings of Cirque du Soleil and stage design and direction for Peter Gabriel's last three tours. I am sure that there will be controversy, there will be name-calling, and there will be rounds of booing from the ultraconservatives at the opening night of the new Rheingold.

Me, I can't wait. A little controversy in the opera house, a little booing, some loud opinions are all better than the audience being asleep at the switch.

Opera Review: That Wacky Bandit

Tenor Marcello Giordani in Ernani.

Ernani at the Met.
On Monday, March 18, the Metropolitan Opera opened its first performance of Verdi’s Ernani in a quarter of a century with powerhouse tenor Marcello Giordani giving a stirring performance of the title role.

Written in the incubating fires of the Italian Risorgimento, Ernani is a setting of a fiery Victor Hugo play about a love-struck bandit whose code of honor is so strict that it eventually causes him to commit suicide on his wedding day.

Yeah. I know.

But the silliness of the plot didn’t stop Mr. Giordani from tearing up the stage. This tenor has been singing lead roles at the big house for the last decade (I first saw him as a memorable des Grieux opposite Renée Fleming in Massenet's Manon) and his instrument has evolved. He has a ringing top register, a smooth middle, and, when necessary, a serviceable low end. He looks the part of a dashing Italianate opera hero and is a believable actor, even in the silliest parts.

Ferrucio Furlanetto, a 20-year veteran of the Met stage, dominated his scenes in the key role of Silva. Honorable to a fault, Silva gets the better of the bandit in the final act. Mr. Furlanetto, who came up through the Salzburg Festival under the wing of conductor Herbert von Karajan, has had a long, varied international career. His fine basso cantante voice remains a pleasure to hear. A compelling presence, physically and vocally, his performance was the bedrock upon which this Ernani rested.

American super-baritone Thomas Hampson also gave a typically intelligent performance as Don Carlo, the King of Spain who becomes Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in the third act. Although he seemed outclassed by the other two male leads, Mr.  Hampson managed to seize to spotlight in the climactic third act, when Charles seizes power.

Caught in the middle: Elvira, one of the great Verdi heroines. She was sung by soprano Sondra Radnavovsky,  who coped admirably with the role's difficult tessitura despite being hobbled by a cold. It's not easy being caught in the middle of this opera, forced to struggle with Verdi's acrobatic vocal writing that almost stems from another era, and she more than met to this role's difficult requirements. Roberto Abbado's conducting didn't quite have the same fire as his singers, but kept the composer's rhythms moving nicely along.

DVD Review: Night Of the Comet

The post-apocalyptic Baden-Baden Parsifal.

by Paul Pelkonen

Gurnemanz (Matti Salminen) presides over the devastation in Act I of Parsifal.Image © 2006 OpusArte/Baden-Baden Festival

The composer Richard Wagner once said, "Children, go do something new!" This new 3-DVD set, which captures Nikolaus Lehnhoff's remarkable production of Parsifal, filmed here on a good night in Baden-Baden takes the composer at his word. Lehnhoff is not the first director to stage a post-apocalyptic version of the Grail legend, but this desolate production (also seen at Covent Garden and the San Francisco Opera) is chillingly effective.