Metropolitan Opera – Massenet’s Thais, January 5, 2009.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center – Orchestra, Seat CC36 ($71.50).

Story. The monk Athanael wants to convert Thais, goddess of Venus in Alexandria, to Christianity. He visits his friend Nicias who has purchased the services of Thais and meets with Thais. After an all-night struggle, Thais decides to abandon her old ways. She burns down her house, including the statute Eros – a symbol of love – and joins a convent. During her 3-month stay at the convent, she leads a completely saintly life and her body is at the end of her strength. Meanwhile, Athanael finds himself in love with Thais and renounces his faith so he can be with her. When he gets to the convent, Thais dies.

Conductor – Jesus Lopez-Cobos; Thais – Renee Fleming, Athanael – Thomas Hampson, Palemon – Alain Vernhes, Nicias – Michael Schade.

The violin solo “Meditation” is a popular piece played by aspiring violinists. It is a nice melody and is relatively easy to play (perhaps even well). I have know “Thais” since I was a teenager, but had no idea what the opera was about.

We came back from Florida this morning, waking up at 4:30 am to catch an early flight. The opera was enjoyable enough that I had no trouble staying awake, although by the time we got home it was past midnight. To be fair, I did nap for an hour or so in the afternoon.

The story is quite simple, actually I thought some scenes were a bit long for what they want to accomplish. An example would be the time it took for Athanael to dress properly for the evening at Nicias’ house. The music was pleasant enough that for most part I didn’t mind.

The singing was excellent by all the principals. Actually the supporting cast did very well also. Renee Fleming, as usual, was exquisite. She did have trouble with one note (that I noticed), though. I don’t know how high she had to reach, but you can tell she wanted to make sure she got the note before stressing it. I imagine she is at the peak of her career at this point. The male protagonist is one of those rare baritone roles, and Hampson did it very well.

There were many scene changes, with a couple of pauses between scenes in Acts 1 and 3. Meditation was played between the scenes in Act 2. There was tremendous applause which I found puzzling. I am sure the soloist (John Chan, the concertmaster) is a great musician, but I certainly don’t think the applause, especially compared to that gotten by the singers, was warranted. Interestingly, the theme is reused many times after its introduction, and Fleming sang some of those parts. She was a bit weak at the low registers.

The program notes describes how the music for Athanael changes from nice to disjointed as he falls from grace, and cites that as an example of how great the opera is. Indeed that is true, but I would suggest instead of reading too much into the opera, one should just enjoy it as a pleasant work with good drama and great music. This is somewhat like Mendelssohn’s violin concerto: enjoy it, don’t analyze it.

There must be something about French opera composers that make them include a dance number in their works. There is one here, and of course there are dances in Saint-Saen’s Samson & Delilah and Bizet’s Carmen.

The program notes also talks about the new production, and how the clothes were designed by Christian Lacroix to match the occasion. I think it is a bit over the top.

A few anachronistic instances of note. The guard had a gun, I’m sure it wasn’t around during the 4th century AD. Also, Nicias threw out paper money to distract the crowd so Thais and Athanael could escape. I’m sure they didn’t use paper money then, either.

One note about the seat. We were in the orchestra section, towards the rear. The acoustics were a bit funny at the edge of the section: probably due to the overhang of the boxes above the seats. In Act 3 we managed to move a bit closer to the center, and the acoustics were much better just 2 seats over.

I am glad we went. The New York Times reviewer has a view very similar to mine, except the writer did a much better job writing.