Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center – Balcony, Seat D117
($92.50).
Conductor – Fabio Luisi; Count Ribbing – Keith Miller, Count
Horn – David Crawford, Oscar – Kathleen Kim, Gustavo III – Marcelo Alvarez,
Count Anckarstrom – Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Judge – Mark Schowalter, Madame Ulrica
Arvidsson – Dolora Zajick, Cristiano – Trevor Scheunemann, Amelia – Sondra Radvanovsky.
Story. King Gustavo
III and Amelia, wife of his friend and secretary Anckarstrom are in love. Amelia seeks out the fortune teller Arvidsson
for advice. Arvidsson says Amelia should
go to a cemetery to find a herb that will rid her of her desire. She runs into Gustavo III there while a group
of rebels led by Ribbing and Horn are also pursuing the king. The king asks Amelia to put on a veil, and
asks Anckarstrom to take her back to the city while the king escapes. The taunting of the group goads Amelia in
removing her veil, thus making known the fact she was with the king. Feeling betrayed, Anckarstrom joins the
rebels and gets selected to assassinate the king. The king throws a masquerade ball and the
three co-conspirators attend the event.
After getting the page Oscar to point out the king’s costume,
Anckarstrom stabs the king to death.
Before the king dies, he tells his friend that Amelia has always been
faithful, and pardons everyone.
After La Clemenza di Tito, CS and I had coffee at the Rubenstein
atrium while we waited for Anne to show up after her CCHC lunch in
Flushing. We sat there, chatted a while,
and then decided to go down to Whole Foods for a simple dinner. Usually Whole Foods in the Time Warner
Building is very crowded, it was busy, but we manage to find a place to sit
down to enjoy our meal. We then walked
around the shops in the building – it seems there have been quite a few changes
since we were last there. Very soon it
was time to head back to Lincoln Center.
CS bought a ticket for the New York Philharmonic, Anne and I headed to
the Opera House.
I was wondering whether I was overdoing it after the Opera
started. I felt quite tired and had trouble
keeping awake. Eventually I woke up, got
quite caught up with the piece, and really enjoyed this performance.
I said in my prior post that the Mozart performance was
technically great but didn’t quite grab me.
One could find more flaws with this performance, but my overall reaction
was quite different.
First, the action is faster paced. Verdi’s music simply propelled the story
along to its inexorable conclusion. Even
though I knew how the story would unfold, having read the synopsis, I was still
very caught up with the development of the plot.
This opera was written by Verdi when he was in his 40s,
after having completed his “trilogy” of Rigoletto, La Traviata, and Il
Trovatore, and before Verdi turned to more dramatic and continuous (and to me
less melodic) works such as Otello and Falstaff. This opera has a lot of pleasant and singable
arias, but also has a heavy dose of continuous dramatic action.
The orchestra really got into the music, providing a wide
range of dynamics, from soft harp passages to heavy drum beats. There are some woodwind (I think one of them
is an alto clarinet) passages that are just splendid.
The set was interesting and simple. One can think of all the action taking place
inside a box which is configured to be the different scenes. There is a mural showing Icarus falling
backwards from Apollo, with his wings breaking off. Anne and I aren’t sure whether this has
anything to do with the story or not. I
suspect one can always make an argument for a connection, but that argument is
not obvious.
A lot is asked of the singers also. All three principals (Alvarez as Gustavo III,
Hvorostovsky as Anckarstrom, and Radvanovsky as Amelia) sang beautifully. There
are some tongue-twisting quick passages that weren’t perfectly executed; but
not so much that it would take away one’s appreciation of the singers’ skill.
Their acting skills aren’t shabby either.
While the opera doesn’t provoke the same emotion as a La Traviata or a
Tosca, I did find myself sympathizing with the principals, and wishing things
would turn out differently (not that they ever do.)
The role of Oscar is sung by a woman, in this case the
Korean soprano Kathleen Kim. She was
made up in a somewhat comical and slightly grotesque way, wearing a goatie and
sprouting wings every now and then, often with a cigarette dangling from her
mouth. This evidently is one of the few
instances Verdi uses a woman to play the role of a male character. Her voice is great, and I am sure would be
more appreciated if she had just been more traditionally costumed.
Speaking of costumes, I am sure people in Denmark didn’t
dress like that in late 18th century. Since the story doesn’t really hinge on the
specific people or era, the dresses, suits and ties weren’t too detracting.
In my opinion, the Program Notes oversells the work a
bit. For instance, the singing that
grows from a solo to a quintet in Act III, while nicely “engineered,” isn’t as
ingenious as the Notes would lead one to believe. Similarly, the laughing chorus at the end of
Act II isn’t as sinister as the Notes suggest.
That doesn’t mean the genius of Verdi as an opera composer doesn’t come
through; but he does that routinely in his operas, not just this one.
There are two intermissions, which make the entire program
last until 11:35 pm. It also took a
while for our car to be retrieved from the garage, so it was close to 1 am
Sunday that we got home. This weekend may
not have been as tiring as our Seattle Ring foray, but it was tiring enough.
The New York Times review has a lot of good things to say
about the opera, but is quite critical of the production. Here we do get an explanation of how Icarus
parallels the king.
No comments:
Post a Comment