Metropolitan
Opera at Lincoln Center, Balcony (Seat C105, $104.50).
Story. See previous blog. The “… demands the life that has been
promised to him” at the end of the synopsis leaves open the possibility that no
one dies. Nonetheless we have the same
ending, Ernani kills himself, and Elvira follows suit.
Conductor – Paul
Nadler; Ernani – Luc Robert, Elvira – Angela Meade, Don Carlo – Placido Domingo,
Don de Silva – Dmitry Belosselskiy.
When we first
got tickets of this opera as part of our season subscription, I was going to
swap the tickets for another opera. We
saw this a few years ago (in 2012) and while I was impressed with my first encounter
of Angela Meade, the overall experience wasn’t so overwhelming that I wanted to
see it again. I was then told Domingo
would be in the cast also, and decided to keep the tickets. In fact I thought Levine was going to be the
conductor, but that might have been for some selected performances.
In any case, I
wanted this opera to “succeed” for several reasons. One was that CS told me the New York Times
review wasn’t all that great, panning both Domingo and (if I remember
correctly) Levine. The other was I was
impressed with how Domingo did in La Traviata as Germont, and would like to see
him continue that with this role. I came
away feeling just okay, which means some level of disappointment.
Let’s start with
Domingo first. His voice was the weakest
among the principals in the cast, even allowing for my usual problems with
picking out frequencies in the tenor-baritone range. Even with having sung over 140 different
roles in his career, this was the first time he did this particular one, and he
was wooden in the delivery most of the time, and (I think) had to constantly
refer to the prompter. As an indication
of how good things could have been, he delivered a great soliloquy at the
beginning of Act III, it is too bad that was the exception rather than the rule
tonight. Of course if you account for
his age (74), it would be very impressive; I am sure he would be the first to
say age shouldn’t be a mitigating factor.
We also noticed that he couldn’t quite bow during curtain calls, so he
might have some problems with movement.
(He had no problems walking up and down the staircases, though.) As a side remark, he is conducting the
current production of Aida at the Met.
Angela Meade
again sang impressively as Elvira. I
didn’t notice any of the misgivings I had last time (harshness, trills.) Perhaps it is where we were seated, or
perhaps even great singers work to improve their technique. I was also impressed with how powerful she
sounded with the lower register notes. There
is no need for additional remarks on her considerable size, except it is
amazing she could move about as much as she did.
The other two
suitors put in great performances. The
Playbill mentions three voices are vying for Elvira: tenor, baritone, and
bass. I am not sure I agree with the
writer’s remark that the chorus is used sparingly: I thought they sang a lot in
the opera. And they did well tonight.
The set is the
same used in the run we saw.
The Financial Times review isn’t the most complimentary, saying that Levine’s conducting is
the one good thing in the three elements required to make Ernani successful: a
stellar set of principals, an inventive director, and an inspired
conductor. The New York Times review is
indeed brutal, suggesting it is time for Domingo to retire. The reviewer does have a great analysis of
the problems with Domingo’s performance, such as “he often seemed preoccupied
with the techniques of singing.” The harshest review I found is the Observer piece with the headline “Domingo
Bombs as Baritone.” A much friendlier
review is from the Latin Post.
No comments:
Post a Comment