Metropolitan Opera – Mozart’s Idomeneo. March 6, 2017.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat Y105, $106).

Story.  See prior blog.

Conductor – James Levine.  Ilia – Nadine Sierra, Idamente – Alice Coote, Elettra – Elza van den Heever, Arbace – Gregory Schmidt, Idomeneo – Matthew Polenzani, Voice of Neptune – Eric Owens.

We had seen this opera before in 2006, it was also conducted by James Levine.  The principal singers were all different, there was no reason to expect otherwise.

I looked over the blog, I didn’t say much about the conducting then.  During the intervening years, Levine’s health has seen a lot of ups and downs.  He had a hiatus of a couple of years, and for a while people thought he would not ever return to the conducting stage.  I made a remark earlier that he seemed to be making progress, and tonight was the best I have seen him since his return.  He managed to keep the trembling to a minimum, and provided good cues to the chorus (we couldn’t tell if there was a choral conductor in the prompter’s box, though.)  This was a long opera – four hours with two half-hour breaks – and his energy level remained high throughout.  I am glad he will be doing a few operas for the next season.

My general comments then about the staging (symmetrical) and costume (what the heck) still hold, although I got to appreciate other aspects of the opera this time, which is good.

There was quite a bit of chorus singing, not so much stand-alone tunes, but the ensemble sounded good, providing the right mood for the occasion.

Most of the singers had beautiful voices, and their voices projected well into our orchestra seats.  Schmidt was a stand-in for Alan Opie, who was ill; he did well.  I could follow Coote as Idamente better this time, but still got confused every now and then by the high female voice.

What I found most disappointing was the lack of emotion in the singers’ voices.  The opera began with rather long monologues by Ilia and Idamante.  All the technical elements were there, the voices were clear, but none of the sadness, longing, confusion came through.  You enjoyed the voices, but you didn’t get invested in the welfare of the protagonists.

Notable exceptions were Polenzani as Idomeneo and van den Heever as Elettra.  When I first saw it, I didn’t the lengthy mad scene Elettra had at the end, and I didn’t like it tonight either.  Which brings me to the issue of so many repeats in the music score, and the need to perform as directed.

The iPhone 6 could do only so much with the dim lighting at curtain call.  From left: Noah Baetge as the High Priest, Elza van den Heever as Elettra, Matthew Polenzani as Idomeneo, Nadine Sierra as Ilia, Alice Coote as Idamente, and Gregory Schmidt as Arbace.

That may bring out a lot of groans from Mozart aficionados, and I am sure there are lots of twists and turns in these repeats, all attesting to the genius of Mozart.  The other side of the argument is, if people are okay with a one-hour version of Magic Flute, there is no reason to not do that in this case, either.

To be fair, the four hours went by reasonably quickly, and I stayed awake throughout despite my not having a good night’s sleep the night before (I had to wake up early this morning.)

We sat next to a couple who have been going to the Met for 30-odd years, and chatted a bit about what we liked and disliked about the performance.  They had seen this opera in 2016 also.  We all felt sorry about tonight's poor attendance: may be around 50% full.

The New York Times review was full of praise for Levine.  The reviewer also mentioned that Mozart actually cut down the length of the libretto.

A cold front came through over the weekend, and temperature was back below freezing.  Plus the fact that it was Monday, so traffic was light both ways.  I don’t recall being able to make the NJ to NY trip in less than one hour, today we did it.  Dinner was at East Szechuan.