Metropolitan Opera – Donizetti’s Anna Bolena. September 30, 2011.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center – Balcony Seat D7 ($71.50).

Story.  Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, falls out of favor with the king.   Meanwhile, the King is in love with Anne’s lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour and decides to charge Anne with adultery and incest, allegedly committed with her former lover Percy and brother Rochefort respectively.  Anne is condemned to death and goes to her execution during the wedding of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour.

Conductor – Marco Armiliato; Jane Seymour – Ekaterina Gubanova, Anne Boleyn – Anna Netrebko, Henry VIII – Ildar Abdrazakov, Lord Rochefort – Keith Miller, Lord Richard Percy – Stephen Costello, Sir Hervey – Eduardo Valdes, Mark Smeaton – Tamara Mumford.

This was the first concert of the season that we attended, and I had high expectations for it, with Anna Netrebko headlining the cast and all.  I wasn’t disappointed.

The synopsis is a bit more complicated than the story line given above.  Smeaton was a secret admirer of Anne Boleyn and tried to help by lying about their relationship, in doing so he managed to get himself tortured and condemned to death.  Hervey is a court official who hangs around a lot, doing what court officials do, such as pronouncing the guilty verdict of various characters.

The opera is in two acts.  The program says there are three scenes in the first act, but I counted four: (i) Greenwich Palace, outside the queen’s apartments; (ii) inside Jane Seymour’s bedchamber; (iii) Greenwich Park; and (iv) a hall in the palace.  The program considers (i) and (ii) one single scene.

The overture is a bit on the long side at about ten minutes.  It started quite ominously, but soon turned sunny and bright, moving into a major key quickly.  Not quite what I expected.  Overall the orchestra sounded crisp and precise.

The set design was functional, but not grand (even though our subscription this year is a “grand spectacle” series).  The last scene happens at the Tower of London but the setting looked more like the Taj Mahal than the menacing structure on Tower Hill; and we didn't see any chopping block.  At the end of the opera, the execution is represented by a masked man holding a long sword.

The roles of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII, and Anne Boleyn were sung by Russians.  Perhaps that’s why there were many Russian-speaking audience members.  (We saw many Chinese when The First Emperor was performed, even though there were few Chinese artists in it.)

The role of the young male musician Smeaton was sung by the mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford, whom we saw in Das Rheingold swimming in the Rhine suspended by a harness.  Her singing role was certainly more substantial in this opera; and she did great.  I never understand why young men are generally casted using women (the other one would be Cherubino in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.)  This somehow confuses me to no end.

Tenor Stephen Costello, as Percy, did a reasonable job.  His voice is not as rich as the first-tier tenors but manages to get across even with a strong orchestral accompaniment, most of the time.  The role may be a bit taxing for him as he had to resort to falsetto (at least once) and lost his voice a bit towards the end.  He certainly has some impressive engagements this season, let’s hope his stamina holds up.

The Program Notes says basses like the role of Henry VIII despite the lack of arias.  To me the lines contained many nice melodies, even though they may not be readily hummable.  I also disagree with the assessment that the King’s role was elegant, menacing, and complex; it simply came across as someone who wanted to accomplish an end regardless of the means.  Nonetheless, Ildar Abdrazakov did an admirable job.  His lowest notes were a bit on the weak side, though.

Jane Seymour, sung by Ekaterina Gubanova, had an important role in the opera also.  She basically had Act 1, Scene 2 all to herself.  I don’t know Gubanova’s background, and most of her engagements this years are in Europe.  Characterized as a mezzo-soprano, roles available to hear are perhaps a bit  limited.  If she can reach the high notes required of Anne Boleyn, she can do a great job as Anna Bolena, I am sure.  Right now her roles seem to be along the lines of someone like Stephanie Blythe.

Anna Netrebko, whom we heard in Don Pasquale, had a strong voice that carried well in the auditorium.  She could be clearly heard while seated, lying on her side, and – most impressively – with her back to the audience.  Having seen a few mad scenes, including the one in Lucia di Lammermoor, I was curious how this would turn out.  Instead of the feared embarrassment of over-emoting by the singer, I found it done just right.  One feels sorry for the character.

We could see the singers reasonably well with binoculars.  And every time I looked, Netrebko had a scowl on her face, or her eyebrows were knotted together.  Even during the mad scene, where she resolved to not condemn the new couple so she could obtain grace from God, she still looked mad.  She sang “forgive, forgive, forgive,” but her face said “curse, curse, curse.”  I don’t know if it is because she doesn’t quite know how to act (I heard quite a few people murmur that sentiment,) or the director wants it that way, but I think the overall performance will greatly improve if different emotions are incorporated.  I can easily imagine wistfulness, regret, and other aspects thrown into the mix.

This is the first time the opera was produced by the Met, which is quite unexpected.  On the other hand, if you read the articles in the playbill, you would think this is one of the greatest operas ever written, with phrases like “masterpiece of operatic insight” sprinkled all over.  That would lead to the question of “why is this only discovered by the Met more than 180 years after it was premiered?  A bit of hyperbole, no doubt.

Overall, I stand by my earlier statement that this performance met my high expectations.  I believe tonight’s performance was the second, and there will be another nine – the Met is certainly planning to get a lot of mileage from it.

The opera was on the long side, starting at 7:35 pm, and we got out at around 11:20 pm.  It was raining, and we only had one umbrella, so I went to pick up the car from the garage and returned to Lincoln Center to pick up Anne.  Traffic, especially close by the Lincoln Tunnel entrance, was quite congested.  We didn't get home until way past midnight.  We will do this again tomorrow, to see a New York Philharmonic concert.

There are quite a few references in the newspapers about this program.  One example is from Financial Times, which gave it 3 stars out of 5.  The reviewer manages to be pickier than I am.