Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. Balcony (Seat B11, $110.50).
Story. The familiar
Cinderella story with a couple of variations.
One is there was only a minimal ballroom scene, another is Cinderella
leaves *after* the clock strikes midnight, the third was her father is willing
to stand up to the step-mother at the end.
A dark element not usually found in the story is that Cinderella thinks
of suicide in Act III. She wanders into the forest, and meets Prince Charming
with the help of the Fairy Godmother. There
were no special effects where a pumpkin turns into a coach, for instance. There are so many retellings of the 1697 work by
Charles Perrault, itself based on earlier fairy tales.
Program. This is the first season of Cendrillon ever at the Met.
Conductor – Betrand de Billy. Pandolfe – Laurent Naouri, Madame de la Haltiere
– Stephanie Blythe, Noemie – Ying Fang, Dorothee – Maya Lahyani, Lucette, known
as Cendrillon – Joyce DiDonato, The Fairy Godmother – Kathleen Kim, Prince
Charming – Alice Coote.
We saw Rossini’s telling of the Cinderella story about 4
years ago, also with DiDonato singing the lead role. It was one of the two live operas I we have
seen with an encore, by Javier Camerena as the Prince. So I went not knowing if I would end up
comparing the two operas, or simply seeing it without any preconceived notions.
Which may not be possible, as I have always enjoyed
DiDonato’s singing. Tonight I wasn’t
disappointed, she sang very well, and did an admirable job as a young woman. There were a couple of arias (such as “reste
au foyer, petit grillon” lamenting a little cricket would never become a
butterfly) that were delivered perfectly.
The rest of the cast also put in stellar performances. Alice Coote as Prince Charming sang her lines
clearly – the best in the multiple occasions I have seen her. Kathleen Kim as the Fairy Godmother added a
touch of humor to the story, and made good use of her strong soprano
voice. Stephanie Blythe is always dependable,
and as the evil stepmother elicited more chuckle than disgust, her flipping to
Cinderella’s side is one example.
Similarly commendable performances were put in by Naouri as the (mostly)
hapless father, and Ying Fang and Maya Lahyani as the clueless stepsisters.
Amid the all-out praise, there is this issue of one star outshining
all others. And we have such a case here. I am not suggesting they shouldn’t have cast
DiDonato, but am musing how much better the production with be if the other principals
in the story can match her capabilities and charisma.
I am not sure how I should characterize the sets. The basic backdrop are three walls “in
perspective,” for lack of a better term.
With my limited knowledge of French, it seems the story is written on
the walls. The center opens in layers to
expand the useable stage area, and all the other props are either wheeled in
(such as the forest scene) or brought in (lamps). The props work in the sense they don’t
distract from the singing, although I had to spend some mental energy to try to
understand them. Equally puzzling were
the occasions where multiple Cinderellas and princes were on stage. If the idea is to express confusion, it
succeeded beautifully in my case. The
lookalikes were so good that I couldn’t tell which ones were the real Cinderella
or Prince.
The "fundamental set." With the help of Google Translate: Once upon a time there was a gentleman who married for a second time ...
One thing I admire was all the different costumes worn by
the ladies competing for the Prince. And
some characters came on the scene for only a short time – show up and try on
the shoe.
The music was pleasant on the first hearing. The Playbill explains why there are no
singable melodies: “… not a score from which discrete arias can be
extracted. Instead, Massenet uses a
flexible vocal style, varying between recitative, lyrical song, and sometime
simply the spoken word.” Perhaps, but
someone should at least give that a try.
Another curious fact is this is the first season ever of
Cendrillon at the Met: we saw the sixth performance. The Playbill talks about three other Massenet
operas (Thais, Werther, and Manon, which incidentally we have seen), and he
wrote many others. I can understand
taste in music changes, but not ever, over 120 or so years?
The opera has three major roles sung by mezzo-sopranos. In this case, the voices of DiDonato and
Coote bear such similarity that I had trouble at times telling them apart. And there were quite a few scenes where they
sang together. It was easier with Blythe
as the stepmother.
All said and done, this was one of the more enjoyable
operas this season. And this was the opera this season, for us.
Curtain Call. Each of the red dresses worn by the women in the back was different.
The New York Times review has a lot of good things to say
about the opera, describing the music as Massenet “doing his best impression of
Baroque dances, conjuring an ethereal world out of Mendelssohn for the realm of
the fairies, whipping duetting lover to Wagnerian heights.” The reviewer does have some criticism of the
singing: DiDonato’s “tone has taken on a noticeable beat … pitch grows
uncertain …,” Coote’s voice is “too blunt to expand over the score’s long
lines, and her crucial duets … trouble spots for both singers to negotiate
rather than luxuriate in,” and even Blythe was “uneven in intonation.”
We went to Hoboken in the afternoon and took public
transport to Lincoln Center from there.
It was after midnight that we got back to Hoboken where we stayed the
night – there would be a New York Philharmonic concert at 11 am the next day.
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