Metropolitan Opera – Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri. October 12, 2016.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Balcony (Seat C107, $92.50).

Story.  The Sultan Mustafa tires of his wife and wants to get rid of her.  He asks Lindoro, someone he captured earlier, to marry her and take her away.  A shipwreck brings ashore Isabella, who is Lindoro’s lover.  Mustafa is taken with Isabella and is willing to be initiated as a Pappataci, which requires him to eat, drink, and keep silent regardless of what is happening.  While that is happening, Lindoro and Isabella sail away, and Mustafa takes Elvira back.

Conductor – James Levine.  Lindoro – Rene Barbera, Isabella – Marianna Pizzolato, Mustafa – Ildar Abdrazakov, Haly – Dwayne Croft, Taddeo – Nicola Alaimo, Elvira -Angela Mannino, Zulma – Rihab Chaieb.

This would be our first encounter with this opera.  The Met last staged this in 2004, and tonight would be the opera’s 74^th appearance on the Met stage.

We got into the hall early enough to see Levine wheeled into the conductor’s position.  This season he will be conducting Nabucco and Idomeneo also.  Not the marathon pieces like Tristan or Isolde, but still a rather demanding schedule.

The last opera we saw was Simon Boccanegra, also conducted by Levine.  Levine was equally energetic with the overture, if not more.  The overture is easy to like, with many catchy melodies. I am sure it took a lot of restraint for the audience not to hum along – I know I had to try hard.  Levine maintained this level of intensity throughout.  While this opera is “only” three hours long (with a 30 minute intermission), it is still two acts at about 75 minutes each.  The days of Levine conducting the Ring may be over, but I certainly will not hesitate seeing him perform Mozart, Rossini, or Verdi.

I don’t care very much for the plot, but it serves as a great canvass for beautiful music, even though the story line is a bit contrived.  One exception I take – despite the Program Note giving it high mark – is the last number in Act I where the principals were just mouthing syllables.  That was supposed to emphasize the confusion, but I didn’t think it was necessary, and am quite sure there are other means to do so.  The orchestra performed crisply throughout, and as needed served as a great backdrop for the action on stage.

The main characters are Lindoro (tenor) and Mustafa (bass-bartone) who both put in excellent performances.  We have heard Abdrazakov sing several different roles before (Prince Igor, for example), and he was always good.  His singing today was commendable, although he was a bit weak with the lower notes.

This was our first encounter with Pizzolato.  She started a bit unsteady but improved greatly as the show progressed.

My expectations with comedies are usually modest in the acting department when it comes to comedies, so I wasn’t disappointed at how wooden the stage play was.  It did take some suspension of belief to envision Barbera and Pizzaloto as these young and attractive lovers.  Now there were some comedic and unsuspected moments.  Lindoro trying to throw flowers into a second story and having them stuck on the window sill is one, the use of a small canon to wreck the boat Isabella is on is another (and it was a loud boom.)

Both Elvira and Zulma have minor roles.  The two singers looked so much alike that I often got them confused.  The singer programmed initially as Elvira was Ying Fang.  Even though the role is minor, I am sure it was a big deal to be on the Met stage.

There were a few songs sung by the chorus – as far as I can tell, only the men sang.  Given our seats in the balcony, we could clearly see the hands of another conductor “hiding” in the prompter’s box.  What was surprising is that his (her?) hands were seen even during the singing by the ensemble of 4.  I am quite sure someone with basic musical skills know when to come in with the right pitch for most of these songs.

All said and done, we walked away satisfied with the performance.

Curtain Call.  From Left: Taddeo, Zulma, Lindoro, Isabella, Mustafa, Elvira, and Haly.

Attendance was low.  The Met seems to have trouble selling tickets for these more standard operas; Tristan and Isolde on the other hand, seems to do relatively well.

The New York Times reviewer was generally positive, and she actually found the story hilarious. Per her remark, the staging was from 1973.  It was surprising that some of the scenes (e.g., men mock-whipping women) are still acceptable today.

We got to the city early enough to have dinner at Dan, a Japanese restaurant, and coffee at Europan before the opera.  The drive home was straight forward also.