Opera Review: La Traviata at the Met

Ed. Note: This is a review of La Traviata from late March 2010. To read about the Met's new production of Traviata starring Marina Popvlaskaya and directed by Willy Decker, click this link. 

For the Superconductor review of the Met's new Willy Decker production of Traviata click this link.

Tenor James Valenti.
Photo © Jamesvalenti.com

Although Monday night's revival of La Traviata featured the return of Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu to the Met stage, the real story was the debut of tenor James Valenti as Alfredo. This was the debut of a possible future star: tall, photogenic, with a pleasing voice and good onstage energy.

Valenti is a tall, handsome leading man with a voice to match. He soared beautifully through the part of Alfredo, and generated real onstage heat with Ms. Gheorghiu in the first act. In one memorable moment, the much taller tenor picked the diva up and whirled her off her feet. His only small fault was a forced high note in the second act. He hit it, but it wasn't pretty.

Verdi's dying courtesan remains Ms. Gheorghiu's signature part, and Monday night's performance showed why. She sang with fire and warmth in the first act, intelligence in the second, and real passion in the difficult death scene.

Despite beginning "Sempre libera" with her back to the audience, she brought down the house with this soprano showpiece. Her acting is an equal footing with the singing, and she is not afraid to show illness and frailty in the role.

Thomas Hampson was perfect casting for Germont pere, singing this unsympathetic part with his customary musicality and intelligence. His "Di provenza il mar" was a clinic in lyric baritone singing, and his entrances in the last two scenes raised the bar for the two leads. It was also nice to see veteran bass Paul Plishka in the small role of Dr. Grenvil.

This is the last run for this Traviata which will be replaced by Willy Decker's spare Salzburg staging next season. It was picked as a last-minute replacement (for "economic reasons") for John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles, which would have featured Ms. Gheorghiu as Marie Antoinette. Given the excesses of the Zeffirelli production, and its elaborate sets, ridiculous ballet and period costumes, it is hard to see where the money was saved.

Opera Review: Songs from the Big Chair

L'Etoile at City Opera.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Jean-Poaul Fouchécourt as King Ouf, out for a stroll in L'Etoile
Photo © 2010 New York City Opera

Emmanuel Chabrier's charming opéra bouffe returned to the stage of the David Koch Theater to open the New York City Opera's spring season. If this sunny staging is any indication, the beleaguered company is back on its feet and headed in the right direction.

Opera Review: The Bunnies Run Amuck

The Fairy Queen at BAM.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A mask from The Fairy Queen. Image © Brooklyn Academy of Music.

It's quite an amazing experience to see a 400-year old four-hour opera and to not want to walk out of the theater afterwards. Thursday night saw the U.S. premiere of Les Arts Florissants' staging of Henry Purcell's legendary semi-opera The Fairy Queen. At its conclusion, company director William Christie paused in the middle of his bows, and led orchestra and audience in a reprise of the opera's final chorus. It was a glorious, inclusive way to end one of the finest operas of this spring season.

A "semi-opera" that borrows heavily from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the show alternates between spoken performance of the libretto (by a fine cast of Shakespearean actors) and a series of spectacular masques which comment on and interpret the action. This tradition of separating emotional reaction from narrative drive would form the root of opera seria and the influence of Purcell's work on the later operas of Handel is unmistakeable.

Jonathan Kent's staging of the work was aided by an unforgettable series of visuals: the giant spider that wrapped Titania in its webs, Apollo (Andrew Davies) descending on a golden winged horse from the flies. The entire production was set in a sort of library or study, with walls that slid in and out and a removable ceiling and floor. As the mind-bending masques began, a lake, a Monet haystack and even the Garden of Eden appeared. The comic business of the Mechanicals and the masques themselves were part high-flying Cirque de Soleil, part classic British holiday pantomime.



Nick Bottom and his band of mechanicals were the maintenance crew for Theseus' manor house--with Flute the bellows-mender (Robert Burt) operating the vacuum cleaner. They were played by a fine crew of actors, led by Desmond Barrit as Bottom. Their Pyramus and Thisbe was staged in classic, ribald Shakespearean fashion, with minimal cuts to the comedy. The four lovers were played by appealing young actors, with emphasis placed on the interchangeable nature of Lysander (Nicholas Shaw) and Demetrius (Gwilym Lee) as a cause of their romantic conflict. Finbar Lynch and Amanda Harris dueled as Oberon and Titania, and the shirtless Jotham Amman as a kinetic Puck.

William Christie led his crack period ensemble in a crisp performance, his ensemble's trademark clarity to the fore. Purcell's work requires both orchestra and singers to find their own place with respect to Shakespeare's play. The audience was treated to exceptional singing, with the company's key vocalists switching costumes and merrily taking on multiple roles. Ed Lyon (Adam in the final masque) Andrew Davies as as Phoebus Apollo (who sang his role in mid-air) and bass Andrew Foster-Williams were all exceptional. But the performance of Emanuelle de Negri brought down the house in her scene as the Plaint, whose aria stopped the ribaldry dead and brought down the house.
On his horse: Phoebus makes his descent in The Fairy Queen.
Photo © 2009 Les Arts Florissants

Opera Review: Clinging to the Wreckage

Attila at the Met.
by Paul Pelkonen

Ildar Abdrazakov (Attila) surveys the wreckage.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2010 The Metropolitan Opera.

The resilience of Verdi's operas, (even his lesser ones) never ceases to amaze.

Take the Metropolitan Opera's current production of Attila, a staging beset with ugly sets, hideous costumes, poor choral placement, bad blocking and difficult scene changes. On Monday night, the cast managed to catch enough of that Verdi magic in the last two acts to bring Attila to a rousing finish.

This ill-conceived staging by Pierre Audi elevates the principal actors well above the stage and orchestra, creating major balance problems in the large house. Even worse, the chorus are relegated to a Nibelheim-like "pit of despair" below the main level of the stage. As the chorus is important in this martial opera, this proved to be a mistake.