Metropolitan
Opera at Lincoln Center, Balcony (Seat C115, $121.50).
Story. The (fictitious) country Pontevedro is about
to go broke, and Baron Zeta wants to ensure the new rich widow Hanna Glawari
will stay in the country instead of moving to Paris. To do so, he elicits the help of various
Pontevedrians to court Glawari, among whom is her former lover Danilo. Additional comedic elements in the plot are
(i) the love affair between Camille – a Frenchman – and Zeta’s wife
Valencienne, (ii) a fan of Valencienne’s with words “I love you” and “I am a
respectable wife” written on it, and (iii) Danilo’s aide Njegus, who often lets
the wrong words slip out. Glawari
actually loves Danilo and would marry him if he only would say “I love you” to
her. Upon finding out from the fan that his wife is unfaithful, Zeta divorces
her and proposes to Glawari. She tells him her late husband will has a stipulation
that she won’t get the inheritance if she remarries. Upon hearing that, everyone loses
interest. When Danilo then declares his
love, Glawari adds the inheritance will actually go to her new husband. Valencienne shows Zeta the other words on the
fan and they reconcile.
Conductor –
Fabio Luisi; Baron Zeta – Alan Opie, Valencienne – Adriana Chuchman, Camille –
Stephen Costello, Njegus – Carson Elrod, Hanna Glawari – Susan Graham, Count
Danilo – Rod Gilfry.
I am quite sure
when I got this as part of my season subscription, Renee Fleming was going to
be in the cast. A ticket exchange later,
the performance we saw had Susan Graham in the cast. We heard Graham before as Dido in Les Troyens
and as Marguerite in La Damnation de Faust, and enjoyed the two performances.
The Playbill
describes this as an operetta and a precursor of the Broadway genre, and I am
quite sure the remarks are meant as compliments. Indeed Susan Stroman, a Broadway veteran, was
brought is as the director and choreographer.
Also, both Julian Crouch (set designer) and William Ivey Long (costume)
have strong Broadway credentials.
The sets are
elaborate enough. The word that keeps
coming to mind, however, is symmetry, particularly for Act I (The Ponteverdrian
Embassy in Paris) and Act III (Chez Maxim.)
To a lesser extent it applies to Act II (a garden); there, except for a
silhouette of Sacre Couer, the image evoked is the garden scene in The Sound of
Music. I must give credit to how
smoothly the sets transitions from Act II to Act III. How the sets look isn’t a big deal for me,
although I thought with an equivalent budget they should be able to do better.
Curtain Call with Chez Maxim set. "Symmetry" is the word that comes to mind.
I can’t decide
whether there is more spoken dialog than singing – it certainly felt that way. That is particularly true with Act I. There are stretches that I thought I was
watching a play, and the orchestra members simply sat there, and Luisi actually
had his arms crossed. Opera singers know
how to project their singing voices, but I am not sure they can use the same
technique for spoken dialog. Indeed I
had a lot of trouble, and my seat was such the brightness of the stage
interferes with the close caption panel.
The tunes are nice, and a couple quite familiar, including the popular“Merry Widow Waltz.” A particular nice
aria is “The Vilja Song” sung by Glawari; as a story told by her it is not
quite germane to the main plot.
The singing was
generally okay. Gilfry as Danilo sang adequately,
but his voice doesn’t have the richness of a top-tier tenor. Chuchman as Valencienne did very well. I thought Susan Graham was a mezzo-soprano
(indeed labeled as such in Playbill), so was wondering how she would do, or if
they would lower the pitch for her. I
couldn’t tell if the musical signatures were changed, but she certainly seemed
to get to some of the very high notes without problem. I don’t know how Renee Fleming would have
done, but I thought Graham did very well.
Alas, that applies to the first two acts only, perhaps up to The Vilja
Song, where her voice soared above the orchestra, and her whisper effortlessly
lifted to the balcony. Towards the end her voice was difficult to pick up; the folks next to us also agreed she lost her voice. Which is too bad, though not as bad as Don
Carlo where I thought they should have taken Lee out after the first act.
The orchestra
did a great job. In addition to the
pleasant overture, I also enjoyed the solo instruments – especially the violin –
that accompanied some of the songs.
For some reason the
libretto is often translated from its original German into English for this opera. And the Met uses a
translated done by Jeremy Sams. I don’t
know how the opera would sound in German, but in English – with the rather
coerced rhyming – it sounded sappy a lot of times.
This, together
with the dialog, the costumes, the choreography, all contributed to my feeling
that this is more like a Broadway show than an opera. Nothing wrong with that, except that I can go
to Broadway and watch a show that meets my expectations.
The New YorkTimes review praises some aspects of the performance (Andrew Davis as the
conductor, and the choreography) but overall pans the show. The reviewer also suggests operettas with
much spoken dialog don’t quite work at the Met (he used the clever title “Talking
(and Talking) About Love.”) Microphones
were used for the dialog, and may explain why I heard some of it – still not
good enough though. He also pointed out
that Davis composed some music that was played off-stage on a piano during some
of the dialog; no wonder we couldn’t find the piano in the pit.
We left NJ early
enough to get into the city. However, a
problem on the Turnpike wreaked havoc on traffic leaving New York, which in
turn meant a lot of congestion in Manhattan.
I had to drive on the opposite lane on 57th (following other
cars) to turn onto 11th Ave.
I managed to find a place to park on Amsterdam (also congested); Anne
got off earlier to buy dinner from a street vendor.
The return was
straight-forward, we stopped at a Turnpike Rest Area for a quick snack before
going home.
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