Richard Sasanow - Page 27

In New York, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX will forever be associated with Beverly Sills' powerful portrayal of Elizabeth I, and her stern photo glaring out from the cover of Time Magazine. However, Italian soprano Mariella Devia, a vocal miracle at 66, nearly caused a riot in the role at Carnegie Hall on June 5, performing with the Opera Orchestra of New York under the baton of its founder, Eve Queler.

When New York's Gotham Chamber Opera--in collaboration with the Gerald Lynch Theatre at John Jay College--presented Toshio Hosokawa's THE RAVEN in its US premiere last week, as part of the NY Philharmonic Biennial, the composer could not have wished for a production that made a better case for it. Yet, despite the company's best efforts--and a wonderful concert opener based on an Edgar Allan Poe story, “Mask of the Red Death”--this was a less-than-fulfilling evening.

Even with its visions of damnation and redemption, Gounod's FAUST, with libretto by Barbier and Carre, is pretty tame stuff. In the wrong hands, it can be dull as well. Well, you can't accuse the Dutch National Opera's new production--by Barcelona's Alex Ollé and the theatre company La Fura dels Baus--of being “dull,” with its prosthetic breasts, Barbie doll chorus and simulated sex.

“The party's over,” wrote Betty Comden & Adolph Green in BELLS ARE RINGING. “It's time to call it a day.” The opera season at the Metropolitan said its farewells to 2013-2014 on May 10 with a bel canto doubleheader of Rossini's LA CENERENTOLA (a shot heard round the world via radio and The Met's LIVE IN HD) and Bellini's IL PURITANI--not a bad swan song, considering the singing talent involved.

When the Met's production of LA CENERENTOLA, Rossini's version of the Cinderella story. arrives in movie theatres around the world next week, the star for many will be tenor Juan Diego Florez as the prince. But he didn't make it to the first three performances of the opera this season in New York--not that we got short-changed in the matter. Mezzo Joyce DiDonato was there in the title role, as scheduled, with her wonderfully sung, deeply felt portrayal and, as the prince, was Javier Camarena, the Met's own Cinderella man.

One of the thrilling things about live opera performance is that it's like watching a tightrope walker, particularly when it's one with as many high notes and such florid writing as in Bellini's I PURITANI. Only daredevils need apply. That was the atmosphere when Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko made her Met debut last week.

By this time in the Met's season, audiences can be a little “been there, done that”--but not when it came to Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais, singing the title role in Puccini's MADAMA BUTTERFLY for the first time in New York. They nearly stormed the stage when she came out for her curtain call, and with good reason. She was spectacular.

Of all the music that Richard Strauss wrote during his long career—and he'd composed almost 60 songs and more than 40 piano works by the time he was 18—perhaps none are more gorgeous and moving than his FOUR LAST SONGS (VIER LETZTE LIEDER). Finnish soprano Karita Mattila's performance on Saturday night at Carnegie Hall with the Munich Philharmonic under Fabio Luisi was gleaming and full bodied, and she held the audience in her thrall.

In our age of 20-somethings suffering from arrested development, they say “25 is the new 15.” This certainly was not true at the Met auditions concert (formally, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Grand Finals Concert, a real mouthful!). At the opera house, Sunday afternoon, the concert showcased nine competitors, all between 24 and 29 but mature artists with poise, acting ability and, yes, voices definitely worth hearing again.

It's always reassuring when a change of cast--in this case soprano Diana Damrau and tenor Javier Camarena in wonderful performances--transforms a truly terrible production into an exciting night at the opera. But that's exactly what happened with the revival of Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA at the Met last week.

I thought someone spiked the water cooler backstage at the Met during the first half of LA BOHEME on March 19. Tenor Vittorio Grigolo's Rodolfo jumped around in the opening scene like he had too much caffeine or needed medication for hyperactivity (think Ritalin). Charming, yes, boyish, definitely, but when he professed his love for Mimi after half an hour's acquaintance, one wondered whether he didn't need something to calm him down. And he wasn't alone.

When the Vienna State Opera visited New York at the end of February, it brought Alban Berg's WOZZECK to Carnegie Hall as part of the “Vienna: City of Dreams” festivities. With the big sound of the Vienna Philharmonic central to the concert performance, it set out to show what a quintessentially Viennese opera sounded like played by the hometown band. Sorry, boys [and it's still mainly a male bastion], but the Met Orchestra, conducted by James Levine, could show you a thing or two.

'I'm not a warhorse kind of singer,' mezzo Susan Graham states matter-of-factly. 'A. I'm a mezzo. B. I'm not a character mezzo. C. I'm not a contralto. The iconic opera repertoire for mezzos, Amneris (AIDA), Azucena (IL TROVATORE), even Eboli (DON CARLO)--those kinds of roles aren't my stock and trade because my voice sits high and has a different timbre.' Well, what then is her milieu? It's the likes of Handel, who composed several of the arias she has been singing this winter at the Met, as one of the stars of THE ENCHANTED ISLAND, a kind of Baroque 'jukebox opera.' But it's also Rodgers & Hammerstein's THE KING & I, which she is doing this June at the Chatelet in Paris.

Maybe Richard Eyre's new production of WERTHER for the Metropolitan Opera, with strong performances by German tenor Jonas Kaufmann and French mezzo Sophie Koch, should have been called WERTHER: THE BACKSTORY or WERTHER: A FOOL'S GUIDE. Eyre took what was otherwise a beautiful and interesting interpretation of the opera and added a prologue and other details (including action leading up to a self-inflicted shot in the chest)--just in case the audience needed some hand-holding to better understand what was going on.

Ever since the Three Tenors--Pavarotti, Domingo, Carreras--got together in Rome's Baths of Caracalla in 1990, the world of opera has never been the same. And while the lookout for “the next big thing” has always been part of the opera world, the race to the finish has intensified over the last two decades, with the focus on tenors. Roberto Alagna had the misfortune to be marketed as “the Fourth Tenor” and was never quite up to the billing. Rolando Villazon has had his ups and downs (and ups). Now Vittorio Grigolo steps into the spotlight.

Maybe Richard Eyre's new production of WERTHER for the Metropolitan Opera, with strong performances by German tenor Jonas Kaufmann and French mezzo Sophie Koch, should have been called WERTHER: THE BACKSTORY or WERTHER: A FOOL'S GUIDE. Eyre took what was otherwise a beautiful and interesting interpretation of the opera and added a prologue and other details (including action leading up to a self-inflicted shot in the chest)--just in case the audience needed some hand-holding to better understand what was going on.

THE TENOR, the new novel by BWW's Classical Music Editor, Peter Danish, is a sweeping tale of a young tenor, that extends from pre-war Italy to his coming of age as a soldier in war-torn Greece, and ends in 1965 with Maria Callas' historic final performance at New York's Metropolitan Opera House. Based loosely on stories that Danish gathered from several of Callas' personal friends, it also includes extensive research done in Italy and Greece. I talked with Peter about the novel--how it came about and his own passion for opera.

Like the young Anthony Hope in Stephen Sondheim's scintillating SWEENEY TODD, “I've sailed the world, beheld its wonders…,” with SWEENEY TODDs ranging from the original cast in New York, to an all-Japanese version in Tokyo, and have never failed to be thrilled by it. But there was something about hearing it with the New York Philharmonic, led by its music director, Alan Gilbert, that showed it in all its greatness.

At a time when we're bombarded by lurid stories—in books, newspapers, television and film—it is a tribute to Richard Strauss's SALOME, first performed in 1905, that it has lost none of its impact and ability to shock. The opera is sensational in every sense of the word, particularly in a performance as intense as the one given by the Vienna State Opera and Vienna Philharmonic on Saturday night at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Andris Nelsons.

Was baritone Thomas Hampson looking for some last-minute pointers at last night's concert performance of Alban Berg's WOZZECK with the Vienna State Opera/Vienna Philharmonic under music director Franz Welser-Most at Carnegie Hall? If he did--his role debut at the Met is Thursday--then he came to the right place, for Matthias Goerne was spellbinding as the title character descending into madness in this challenging, yet rewarding, piece. From his first scene, shaving the Captain, to his drowning as an accidental by-product of the murder of his mistress, Goerne was haunted and haunting.