Metropolitan Opera – Wagner’s Das Rheingold. April 29, 2019.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Balcony (Seat E115, $152.50).

Story.  See previous post.  Also see my short summary below.

Conductor – Philippe Jordan.  Woglinde – Amanda Woodbury, Wellgunde – Samantha Hankey, Flosshilde – Tamara Mumford, Alberich – Tomasz Konieczny, Fricka – Jamie Barton, Wotan – Michael Volle, Freia – Wendy Bryn Harmer, Fasolt – Gunther Groissbock, Fafner – Dmitry Belosselskiy, Froh – Adam Diegel, Donner – Michael Todd Simpson, Loge – Norbert Ernst, Mime – Gerhard Siegel, Erda – Karen Cargill.

Depending on how one looks at it, this is my third ring (I did also want a full additional cycle, although not all within a week.)  The last ring was in 2013 (also at the Met), and I last heard Das Rheingold was “in concert” with Alan Gilbert conducting one of his last concerts as music director of New York Philharmonic.  That was in 2017.

I must say for me this ring has gotten off to a shaky start.  But that’s my problem: I couldn’t help dozing off a bit at the beginning of the opera.  I certainly got enough sleep the prior evening, so may be I was bored (things did seem to happen slowly), or I didn’t have enough caffeine in me: I made sure to stay away from coffee since early afternoon so I could last through the 150 minutes.

Despite that, I found the story quite easy to follow: Alberich steals the Rheingold; Alberich enslaved the Nibelungs to mine gold, he had a ring made, and took the Tarnhelm from his brother Mime; Wotan had the giants build Valhalla and wanted to renege on his promise of Freia to them; Loge appears and together with Wotan they captured Alberich and took all his gold, the tarnhelm, and the ring; Alberich places a curse on whoever owns the gold; the giants Fasolt and Fafner agreed to take the gold and the ring as substitute payment for Friea; Wotan wanted to keep the ring but Erda’s appearance convinced him to give it up; Fafner kills Fasolt to claim the treasure all to himself; people are seen to walk towards Valhalla as the opera concludes.

The 24-plank (articulated, mind you) set, part of the $40 million (or is it $45?) production continues to be a topic of amusement and discussion.  I was wondering if they moved around less during the second year, but I am sure they got full use out of it this evening.  And I must say it did its job without too much complaint (in the form of creaks), with the (possible) except that Erda took longer to emerge.  The gentleman next to me and I concluded that if the Met as rumored retires the set after this season, then they will have used the set around 60 times, which works out to $600,000 to $750,000 per use.

We were wondering if they refreshed the costumes.  We certainly didn’t remember the suits worn by the Rhinemaidens were black.

The most surprising aspect was how well the sound came across.  We heard the singing clearly most of the time, even when the full orchestra was playing.  Was it the better positioning of the singers against the planks that projected their voices, or was a sound enhancement system used?  The only one who was consistently weak was Loge; his role was quite prominent tonight.

I do have a few questions.  I am sure Erda said she had three daughters.  I assume two of them are Flicka and Friea, but who is the third?  The people “climbing” towards Valhalla at the end of the opera, are they “random” dead people, as I stated earlier?  Towards the end I was sure Notung’s leitmotif was played, my question is why?

Curtain Call.

In a couple of hours we will start for New York again, for Walkure.  I didn’t get enough sleep last night, and it is going to be 5 hours.

CS also had tickets to this Ring, so we rode up together.  He just arrived in the morning on a red-eye flight from San Francisco.  We had dinner at Francesco’s.

London Philharmonic Orchestra – Edward Gardner, conductor; James Ehnes, violin. April 14, 2019.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Tier 1 (Seat CC101, $66).

Program

Overture to Egmont (1809-10) by Beethoven (1770-1827).

Violin Concerto in D minor (1903-04, rev. 1905) by Sibelius (1865-1957).

Symphony No. 1 in D major (1885-88) by Mahler (1860-1911).

Fairly or unfairly, tonight’s concert felt a lot more substantial than Sunday’s.  Not to minimize Ravel’s Concerto in G, in the violin repertoire the Sibelius must rank among the top, and at 56 minutes Mahler’s first symphony is a titan, even though he withdrew that title a few years after its publication.

The Egmont overture, an otherwise completely legitimate concert piece, served as the program introductory piece to provide a break for late comers to be seated.  It was played with precision, ending in a building crescendo that signaled triumph at the end.  No, Beethoven didn’t write an opera called “Egmont,” instead it was introduced in Vienna at a play based on Goethe’s tragic play.

I have reviewed the Sibelius Violin Concerto many times in this blog, my most recent encounter was in Hong Kong last September, with Joshua Bell.  What I learned from the Program Notes today was that the 1905 revision was less flashy, and conducted by Richard Strauss at its premiere.

Ehnes was flawless technically.  The orchestra was large, but he managed to maintain a balanced dialog with it throughout.  The first two movements were a bit too “mechanical” for me: there is always the risk that making sure the execution was technically flawless may make one lose focus on the message.  I once characterized this concerto as going through the stages of grief: frustration, struggle, bargaining, and acceptance.  While I was impressed with the violinist’s virtuosity throughout, it’s only in the last movement that I felt emotionally engaged with the music.

Ehnes and Gardner after the Sibelius Concerto.  The soloist held his own against a rather large orchestra.

He played two encores.  Sonata No. 3 by Ysaye was like an etude in double- and triple-stops.  He performed it flawlessly: I didn’t catch any stray notes.  A true musician can appreciate how the piece is organized, a true technician can appreciate how challenging the piece is; I am neither.  The second encore was Bach’s third violin sonata (third movement, I believe).  Bach’s music is not easy to get right, and I don’t know this well enough.  However, I think the way Ehnes approaches the violin is perfect for Bach.

I am reasonably familiar with Mahler’s first symphony. If I were to describe how I heard it, I would – as with the concert yesterday – plagiarize the lot from the Program Notes.  So I decided to include that in this blog.

I did a count of the number of musicians on stage for this symphony: 16 first violins, 14 second violins, 12 violas, 10 cellos, 8 basses, 5 percussion players (2 sets of timpani), 9 brasses (trumpet, trombone, tuba), 12 reeds (4 each oboes, bassoons, clarinets), 4 flutes, 1 harp, and 1 additional trombone in the midst of the 8 horns.  Not sure I got everyone; and of course there are doubling parts (piccolo, English horn, etc.)

The third movement started with a solo double bass playing “Frere Jacques” in a high register.  It sounded quite nice, although it could have been much louder.

It occurred to me that Mahler had to be both precocious and self-assured to think he could get away with this, his first symphony, composed when he was in his twenties.  As the Program Notes explains, “some listeners were baffled by his ingenious juxtapositions of irony and sublimity, of parody and exultation, as well as by his merging of the genres of song and symphony.”  I believe some other reviewer had a phrase like “vulgarity and refinement” as well. It was a good thing that his supporters outnumbered his detractors, I can see a critic panning his music as being “un-serious,” “comical,” “immature” and as a result he may either been shunned or driver to stop writing altogether.  Evidently the critics did get to him, since he did revise the symphony, including the removal of one movement altogether.

This is a large orchestra that held together well.  Notice the section seating arrangement was quite different from Sunday's performance.  The first time I observed something like this.

I had not sit in Tier 1 for a while.  One gets a much more interesting view of the stage; however, the acoustics at my seat wasn't the best: I could hear okay, but the sound came across at times a bit muffled.

I was impressed with both the Philharmonia Orchestra and this one.  The advantage of living near New York is that great performers come visit.

CS and his neighbor also attended this concert.  We met up for a light snack at Starbucks before the concert – I was late because NJ Transit had problems due to a downed tree in Middletown.  The concert ended at about 10:15 pm, so we had to take the 11:07 pm train home.  Anne picked me up at the train station at around 12:30 am.

London Philharmonic Orchestra – Edward Gardner, conductor; Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano. April 14, 2019.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat X103, $66).

Program

La mer (1903-05) by Debussy (1862-1918).

Piano Concerto in G major (1929-31) by Ravel (1875-1937).

Ma mere l’oye (“Mother Goose Suite”) (1908-10) by Ravel.

Iberia, from Images (1905-08) by Debussy.

These concerts belong to the Lincoln Center “Great Performers” series, and I bought tickets to this afternoon and tomorrow night’s concerts the same time I bought the Philharmonia ones.  Those concerts, led by Salonen, were in March.  I thoroughly enjoyed them, and all indications are that I will enjoy these concerts as well.

Next month Anne and I will be embarking on a European tour, and London is on our itinerary.  I looked for concerts by the few London orchestras I know, and haven’t been able to find any.  One advantage of living close to NYC is that orchestras come visit, so there is no need to go look for them.  (Of course the concert hall experience is a completely different matter.)

So I gave it away: this was an enjoyable concert.  I think back on a recent NJ Symphony concert I attended, which I said shouldn’t have the title “Debussy Masterworks.”  There is no doubt today was a show of “French Masterworks,” although one might argue French should not be limited to Debussy and Ravel.  More significantly, though, was how La Mer was performed today versus how NJSO did it, an effort I described as uninspired.

The notes in the Program (provided by David Wright) were quite short, but managed to describe quite well what the three movements of La Mer: comparing Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony with the first movement’s arrival at the sea; describing the second movement as ‘waves at play;” and that brass and strings represent the ocean the the zephyrs.  Gardner brought forth the music exactly as described.  A rather large orchestra was used, and the lines were amazingly clean.

A large orchestra was used to perform Debussy's La Mer.

As I did when Yuja Wang was the soloist with the London Symphony Orchestra, I read up on the Ravel Concerto beforehand, and it added a lot to my appreciation of the music.  This was my first encounter with the pianist Bavouzet, and he was up to the task technically, and brought out much of the jazzy aspects of the music.  The first and third movements are amazing, the syncopation and the glissandos requiring a lot of coordination between the soloist and the orchestra, and they worked well together.  What was slightly disappointing was how the slow movement sounded.  The Program Notes reference Gabriel Faure and Erik Satie, I thought it could sound a bit more thoughtful (for lack of a better term.)  For parts of the first movement, the balance between the piano and the orchestra left something to be desired, but that issued went away as the concerto progressed.

I did take some notes during the Ravel concerto.  Movement 1: piano weak, fun to watch, did flourishes well; Movement 2: dreamy Faure?  Not quite; Movement 3: Very alive!

Gardner and Bavouzet at the conclusion of the Ravel G Major Piano Concerto.

I had heard he Mother Goose Suite several times before, but couldn’t tell you much about it.  I suspect the same would happen in a few days, but for a few moments I got it.  The 16-minute piece contains these movements (translated into English): (I) Pavane of Sleeping Beauty, the pavan being a grave and sober court dance; (II) Tom Thumb, who got lost in a forest, and saw his dropped bread crumbs eaten by birds, there were some bird calls in the movement; (III) Laideronette, princess of the pagodas, set in delightful Oriental music, and the princess’s name translates as “Miss Ugly;” (IV) Conversation of Beauty and the Beast, with the latter represented by the growl of a bassoon; and (V) The Fairy Garden, revealed eventually in its full splendor.

A considerably smaller orchestra for Ravel's Mother Goose Suite.

The movements to Iberia are (I) On the Streets and the Roads, a survey of a busy scene in sunshine, punctuated by rhythms from the castanets and tambourine; (II) Perfumes of the Night, with suggestive bits of habanera and other dance rhythms echoing around a deserted plaza; and (III) The Morning of a Feast Day, a sunrise that eventually leads to a roar of activity at the close.

During my act of plagiarizing from the Program Notes I felt I relived the performance.  This was how good the Notes and the orchestra were.

The audience was very appreciate at the conclusion of the concert.

Another interesting quote from the Notes, Manuel de Falla at some point made the remark that the best Spanish music was being composed Frenchman.

I had seen Gardner conducting the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the Met, and New York Phil (that was just last year.)  This was the most effusive I have been.

Today started early for me as I had an early church commitment.  I was worried if I would be able to sit through this concert, and by-and-large managed to.

I took the train in, and I moved to seat Y102 after the intermission so I could rush to the subway after the program concludes.  The Program was longer than advertised, so I had to take a later train back.  Anne took a couple of grandkids to see NJSO’s Mary Poppins at the State Theater.  They enjoyed it.

New York Philharmonic – Simone Young, conductor. April 11, 2019.

David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat CC103, $62.50).

Program

Symphony No. 6 in A minor (1903-05, rev. 1906) by Mahler (1860-1911).

The last time I heard this symphony was two years ago, performed by the Hong Kong Philharmonic, conducted by Jaap van Zweden.  I was very curious how tonight’s concert would turn out: van Zweden was the scheduled conductor, and New York Philharmonic would be playing.

It was thus a disappointment when I received an email from New York Phil saying van Zweden hurt his shoulder (and I wish him a quick recovery) and the substitute conductor would be the Australian Simone Young.  I had never come across that name before, and I attend Sydney Symphony and other Australian musical events a few times a year.  Sure enough, the San Francisco Orchestra sent me an email (once you register with an organization, they get you; I still get correspondences from Zurich Tonhalle, in German no less) where Young would be conducting one of the series.

Might as well start with her.  A search of the web returned results saying that she is in her 50s, Australia-trained, was chief conductor of Opera Australia for a couple of years, and is considered a Wagner and Strauss specialist.

For tonight’s concert, she conducted with a lot of energy, and – fairly or not – reminds me of Xian Zhang in the exaggerated movements used to lead the ensemble.  (I know Zhang is considerably younger.)  And it worked, the orchestra played certainly more precisely than I expected it to.  More surprisingly, the volume was great (this may also be due to where we sat.)

This Mahler symphony used to be called “Tragic,” a title Mahler provided in the original score but withdrew later.  Interestingly the HK performance I saw had this term in the Program.  The other issue that often gets discussed is the order of the two inner movements.  Prior to van Zweden, the two NY Phil performances I heard had it Andante – Scherzo. Tonight’s program was printed with van Zweden as the conductor, and the order was Scherzo – Andante.  Young followed the program.  The third aspect – of which I am not 100% sure – was that tonight there were three hammer blows.  Sitting in the orchestra, I could barely make out the movement of the “hammer striker” as he moved from other percussion areas to the hammer.  It was loud – I saw another percussionist covering his ears, and I didn’t notice these sound barriers.

These issues, and Mahler’s composition routine, fill most of what one reads in tonight’s Playbill, which is about the same as how I remembered it last time.  There was not much insight beyond some words that include “… but in the sixth one encounters a cosmos that holds out no hope for mankind.”  I remember how in past performances I describe the end as multiple attempts to recover from these giant hammer blows, but the end is failure and hopelessness.  I didn’t quite get that tonight.

Young had this “deer in headlights” look at the beginning of the concert (I watched her using binoculars); she rightfully carried herself triumphally at the end as it was by many measures a great concert.  I just wish there was a bit more story-telling.  Nonetheless, my being alert and attentive during the program is an indication of how much I enjoyed it.

Simone Young acknowledging the tremendous applause from the audience.

The New York Times Review is titled “Absent 20 Years, a Conductor Rescues the Philharmonic.”  The reviewer is generally positive on the performance, and on Young, he wasn’t as enthusiastic as the title would suggest.  And he devote little space on how the performance went.  He was also looking forward to see how van Zweden would do.  Young would also return next season.

We took the train up, and the 7:30 pm start gave us ample time to catch the 9:38 pm train back to South Amboy.

Monmouth Civic Chorus. Ryan James Brandau, conductor. April 6, 2019.

Axelrod Performing Arts Center, Deal, NJ.  Premium Seating (Seat J115, $38).

Program

Carmina Burana: A Scenic Cantata (1935-1936) by Orff (1895-1982).

Guest Artists

Claire Leyden – soprano, Alex Guerrero – tenor, Marcus DeLoach, baritone.

Roxy Ballet – Mark A. Roxey, director.

The soloists get mentioned, the ballet company gets mentioned, and - certainly - the conductor gets mentioned in bold, but we can't tell who the composer is on the program.

This is going to be a short report.  As Anne remarked to me afterwards, I nodded off quite a bit during this concert.  I have powered through long days and jet lags, but I “lost” terribly tonight.

We saw this about ten years ago performed by the National Chorale, and my blog entry for that event would indicate I was reasonably familiar with the piece, I had forgotten most of it by now.

First, the accompaniment consisted of two pianos and several percussion instruments.  This was the same arrangement used in the 2009 performance I saw.  Then there is this “storyline” which is reasonably easy to trace if one spends a little time on it – which I didn’t.  The most surprising aspect, however, is that this is called a “Scenic Cantata.”  That I had no idea.  As described in the Program, “[Orff] conceived it as a ‘scenic cantata,’ combining music, dance, costumes, and imagery.”

Thus when I first sat down, I was wondering where the orchestra was, and what this part of the stage where it usually sat was for.  At the end of the program, I was quite impressed with how well the dancers did, some moves were exceedingly athletic.  Evidently the dance company and the chorus have been at it since 2016.  To carry on my plagiarism further, I quote from the Program: “The texts were probably written by itinerant scholars and defrocked priests who roamed from town to town, reciting bawdy poems to earn their food and drink …” Well, everything sounds good in Latin (as well as German and French).

There was a last-minute soloist substitute, which Brandau announced at the beginning of the concert.  I didn’t get the specifics, other than it was possibly the baritone.  In any case, all of them did well.

Curtain call.  Wheel of fortune projected on the screen.  Mark Roxey is the one in the white jacket.

“O Fortuna” is heard quite often over the radio, and has a haunting quality to it.  I do wish the chorus had “shouted” a bit louder for this number.

We were in north Jersey before the concert, and on our way down some debris fell off a truck and hit our car, causing some damage to the passenger side.  Most frustrating … We stopped by TGI Fridays in Monmouth Mall for a quick dinner.

Lorinda and Henry’s daughter was in the chorus.  They were in attendance also.

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra – Xian Zhang, conductor. April 5, 2019.

Prudential Hall at NJPAC, Newark, NJ. Orchestra Grand Tier (Seat D101, $25).

Program

Samaagam: A Concerto for Sarod, Concertante Group and String Orchestra (2008) by Khan (b. 1945).

Scheherazade, Op. 35 (1888) by Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908).

Sarod musicians: Amjad Ali Khan, Amaan Ali Bangash, Ayaan Ali Bangash.

This was my first encounter with the sarod.  The artists today were from a long line of sarod players (sixth and seventh generation) whose ancestors were credited with (possibly) inventing the instrument.  We got to the auditorium at about 7:15 pm, so heard the last 15 minutes or so of the “Classical Conversation” with the three musicians, and I read up a little on the instrument and Indian music.  Frankly that wasn’t enough to give me a good understanding.  I debated and decided to jot down a few “facts” while they are still relatively fresh in my mind (I am typing the Sunday night, the concert was Friday night) in case I want to come back to it.  It is very likely I got some of the information wrong.

The sarod is a plucked instrument, without frets, with four to five main strings.  There are also a few drone strings (to produce key-related pedal points) and ten or so sympathetic strings tuned to resonating frequencies of the music, to add to the fulness of the tone, I suppose.  Indian music is based on ragas, which have no Western music equivalent, and the composer Amjad Ali Khan adapted more than 10 in this piece, with the title conveying his idea “to preserve the essence of both Indian and Western traditions … without artistic compromise.”  He couldn’t read western music, so he solicited a friend to help jotting things down for him.  What I didn’t hear was how the orchestration was developed. The Program lists “first chair strings have concertante parts,” so what were the flute and bassoon doing in the ensemble?  While we are on the subject of puzzling issues, why are Ali Khan’s sons called Ali Bangash?

A Sarod on sale I found on the web.  This lists for 35,000 rupees, a little over US$500.

The movements of the work are: Ganesh Kalyan, Kalavati Medley, Basant Medley, Megh Medley, Bhupali, Bhairavi.  There was this pair of drums called table that was used throughout the piece, they mentioned the drummer’s name, but he wasn’t listed in the program.

Zhang explained how she came across these musicians.  She was asked to conduct a concert in Dubai with the Welsh National Orchestra, and this was on the program.  She thought it would be good to introduce the music to an American audience, and the piece would pair well with Scheherazade in a “East meets West” program.

While I have no problem with that, I frankly didn’t get much out of the piece other than some level of satisfaction that I learned something that I otherwise wouldn’t have sought to learn.  The music was easy enough on the ear, and sounded simple enough that I could follow the lines, but I felt through out it engaged the intellectual part of my brain rather than the emotional part.  Since the music is popular in India, I do wonder how much learning and exposure will be needed for me to appreciate it.

 After the pre-concert talk, the musicians tuned their instruments.

Zhang with the composer (and performer) Ali Khan.  On their left are Ali Khan's two sons.  Notice the tabla player on the other side of the stage.

Scheherazade in contrast was easy to enjoy.  Rimsky-Korsakov managed to give the music a distinct Eastern feel using traditional Western instruments.  In the Program Notes the unfashionable descriptions of the movements were again dropped, in its place were these mundane notations: Largo e maestoso – Allegro non troppo; Lento – Allegro molto; Andantino quasi allegretto; and Allegro molto.  Fine, but was it really Scheherazade who withdrawn the description?  Or was it how tides turn with how musicologists view things?  The composer died over 100 years ago, and they only found out (or started to conform with his wishes) recently?

Whatever program one used tonight, the concert was enjoyable.  Wyrick had quite a few solo lines, some rather difficult, and he did very well, other than a slight intonation problem here or there.  Anne’s only issue was the volume of the violin.  My previous live encounters with the piece was with Dicterow and Huang playing the solos.  I had a lot of problem with Dicterow, and remarked that “if Huang continues to perform the way he did, people would soon forget about Dicterow.”

After the performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade.

Anne and I were in Parsippany early afternoon to set up a display at a church’s missions conference, and were done by a time that didn’t make sense to go back to South Amboy.  We had a quick bite at Jersey Gardens Mall.  Had I remembered there was a pre-concert talk, we would have eaten faster to get to NJPAC in time.

Metropolitan Opera – Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito. April 3, 2019.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Orchestra (Seat W32, $25).

Story.  See previous blog.  I read it just now, in that 2012 entry I wrote “Sesto and Vitellia marry each other.”  That certainly wasn’t what I saw today, nor was it mentioned in the Playbill.

Conductor – Lothar Koenigs.  Vitellia – Elza van den Heever, Sesto – Joyce DiDonato, Annio – Emily D’Angelo, Emperor Tito – Matthew Polenzani, Servilia – Ying Fang, Publio – Christian van Horn.

I must say the “story” I wrote in my previous blog entry makes more sense to me than either the Synopsis in the Playbill or the actual performance.  Despite having gone to so many operas with women singing male roles, I still have this (shall I call it) cognitive dissonance resulting in confusion in my mind.  Being a little closer to the stage, and with the help of binoculars, I did manage to follow the story a bit better.  However, in tonight’s performance the relation between Sesto and Titus was a bit murkier: were they just good friends, or were they lovers?  Also, early in the opera I already decided that if you are too nice, people will walk all over you.

Some background I either missed or didn’t jot down last time that is worth recording: First, this was one of Mozart’s last compositions.  The work is numbered K. 621, and premiered in Prague on September 6, 1791, about three months before Mozart died.  Mozart was in Prague but was sick on that day.  Second, this work was commissioned for the coronation of Leopold II as king of Bohemia (he had already been the Holy Roman Emperor), and was supposed to demonstrate what a great ruler he would be.  And incidentally, his sister was Marie Antoinette.  Third, Mozart wasn’t really into opera seria, the other work completed at about the same time was The Magic Flute (K. 620, although it was premiered later.)

This opera was first performed by the Met in 1984 (tonight’s was the 47^th performance).  It was led by James Levine (evidently no longer “the conductor whose name shall not be mentioned.”)  Evidently the same set was used for this season.  I have no quarrel with that, other than I have no idea what period the costumes is from.  What Vitellia had to wear was the most ridiculous, in my opinion.

The singers all did well.  Perhaps her singing was at a different level than the other artists, the story seemed to revolve around the character Sesto, and DiDonato did very well, especially the aria Deh, per questo istante solo of Act II.  However, I though she was a bit sloppy during some of the difficult runs in Parto, parto, ma tu, ben mio.  She sang the same aria in a YouTube video I found, she did much better in that one.  Vitellia is probably the most difficult character to portray in this opera as she needs to be both calculating and vulnerable, and van den Heever did very well.  Her arias call for some low notes, it was a bit nerve-wrecking as she braced herself to get those out: she managed very well.  I am quite sure she wonders “Why the heck am I dressed like this” often.  We saw these two leading ladies in Maria Stuarda, they did well in that opera also.

The other two women artists didn’t have the same recognition as DiDonato and van den Heever - although I have seen Fang’s name several times before – they both managed to come across quite well.  D’Angelo’s voice was a bit on the harsh side, but I am sure that would improve as she matures as a singer. Fang is a graduate of the Lindemann Program, and D’Angelo is a member.

Both male singers have impressive pedigrees.  I remember Polenzani in performances of The Elixir of Love and The Pearl Fishers (and I am sure I saw him in other performances) and van Horn in Mefistofele (interestingly not listed in the Bio in the Playbill).  Their roles don’t have the same stage time as the leading ladies.  Polenzani’s voice was great for this opera, van Horn sang clearly as Publio went about advising Titus.

The performance appeared to be reasonably well attended, although I managed to move in quite a few seats as row W was quite empty.

Curtain Call.  From left: van Horn, DiDonato, van Heever, Polenzani, D'Angelo, Yang.  I left before the conductor got on stage.

I met up with an old colleague Roger at the Cheesequake Rest Area and nearly missed the train up.  I also left soon after the performance concluded to make the 11:18 pm train, which I did, with enough time to spare to get a snack from Au Bon Pain.  It was after midnight that I got home.