Met’s Carmen Telecast Matches Radio’s Vocal Performances

Now that interviews with the singers have become an important intermission feature of the Met’s HD Telecasts, the viewing audience gets to meet the artists as they come off stage right after their performances. At the Encore Telecast of Carmen on February 3rd, it happened to be after Act Two, which stood out not only for the heated drama mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca and tenor Roberto Alagna created as the doomed lovers, but for Alagna’s botched high note taken piano instead of forte as written at the end of La fleur que tu m’avais jetée, in Don José’s rapturous love song. The interview did not go as originally planned, but since the Met’s General Manager Peter Gelb wanted the audience to have immediate contact with his “stars,” the audience listened patiently as Alagna spoke of his vocal mishap in what surely was an embarrassing moment for the tenor. It is now becoming a question of how many of these “live” interviews the viewers have to sit through during these telecasts.

But Richard Eyre’s new production of composer Georges Bizet masterpiece has turned out to be the hit of the Met opera season so far. In the January 2010 issue of Opera News, the British director described that he and set and costume designer Rob Howell wanted to give the opera a grittier feel by moving the story from 19th Century Spain up to a “period a century forward to the 1930s, the fascist Franco era.” Howell was able to deliver on Eyre’s vision by creating, “a circular architectural space on the Met’s rotating stage” with a unit set that suggested “the ruins of a city wall, perhaps after a bombing.” Also, Eyre was able to add “psychological depth and social realism” with the cast he put together.

Alagna may not have achieved all that he wanted vocally with his Don Jose, but physically and dramatically the tenor delivered an emotionally disturbed character whose possessive love for Carmen could only lead to their destruction. Even though this was a new production for Alagna and Garanca, they looked entirely comfortable in their respective roles, likely because they sang Carmen and Don José in Europe before they came to the Met.

Garanca’s physical carriage as Carmen coincided with her vocal performance on the radio. The role posed no problems vocally, and she produced an even sound throughout her vocal range, but still she lacked the piquant nasal sound that French native speakers bring to the text. But her interpretation was unique. Garanca presented Carmen as an independent woman who showed annoyance with anyone trying to claim her love without her full consent. She also took her physical attraction to men as a given; the mezzo, even with her blue eyes, presented a warm, alluring Carmen; this no-nonsense Carmencita could have any pick of the litter.

The Act Four duet between Carmen and Don José was a dramatic standout for the couple. Alagna’s José, a volatile composite of jealousy, rage and mental instability appropriately did not mix with Garanca’s determination to be rid of José as a lover and ready to take on a new amorous adventure with the toreador Escamillo. The reason for their exciting delivery in this last scene was the dramatic harmony of their vocal strengths and emotional eruptions.
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Audience Enjoys Sher’s Contes d’Hoffmann at HD Telecast

If the audience’s reaction to the January 6, Met Encore Telecast is to be taken as an example of how enjoyable a new opera production can be, then Bart Sher’s Contes d’Hoffmann rates as one of this year’s Telecast successes. The theater director won a Tony for his revival of South Pacific and then turned to opera with a successful Barber of Seville at the Met three years ago. New opera productions at the Met, such as Tosca and Carmen, are getting plenty of scrutiny from print and on-line media this season, and this Hoffmann was no exception. Added to the mix were a number of negative comments over Artistic Director James Levine’s choice to use an older edition of the score.

Luckily for opera lovers, who never get tired of all the feedback a new production can garner, there were lots of opinions to wrangle over. The question of what edition of the opera to present has plagued the opera world since Contes premiered at the Opéra-Comique in February,1881.

In the New York Times on December 26, 2009, Anthony Tommasini spoke about the Met’s choice of edition. “Within the opera world, however, one aspect…has come in for particular criticism. …an edition of the work considered outmoded and questionable by many informed buffs and Offenbach scholars.” At the end of the article, Tommasini comes to Levine’s defense. “As I said, I take no sides about the authenticity or appeal of any of the sources for Hoffmann. But Mr. Levine is within his rights to perform a more traditional version of the work if it suits the needs of his company.”

But David Shengold in the Gay City News in December, 2009, wasn’t having any of that; he just about dislikes everything in the production. As for Bart Sher’s work, Shengold called it, “cluttered, unilluminating.” As for Levine’s conducting it was “without much variety of phrase or a sense of belief in the piece,” and finally, on the edition, Shengold stated, “despite the accumulated research of recent years-the same old corrupt Hoffmann edition the Met has been giving since 1992…”

None of this, however, seemed to put a damper on the audience’s good time as they watched the opera unfold on the screen.

Sher’s early 20th-century look with a cabaret motif pictured an environment in which even Kafka’s angst could survive by using the somber colors many opera directors find so attractive today.

If not everyone liked Sher’s show, it didn’t obscure his ability to get his singers to perform in a continuously natural style that showed up very well for the camera. Gary Halvorson’s camera work was clear in catching everyone at the right moment until half-way through Act Two when he started to speed up many of his shots, diluting the dramatic effect of the performers’ portrayals. Fortunately in Act Three, he opted for fewer camera swings.
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Verdi, Il trovatore

From Seen and Heard International
By: Bernard Jacobson

Seattle Opera, soloists, cond. Yves Abel, dir. José Maria Condemi, set designer Allen Moyer, costume designer John Conklin, lighting designer Thomas Hase, Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, Seattle, 16 and 24.1.2010 (BJ)

Music trumped drama in Seattle Opera’s new Trovatore, partly because vocal and orchestral values were so strong, but partly also on account of some idiosyncracies in the staging.

Let me first discuss those strengths. In the customary Seattle set-up of double casts, the eight singers in the four principal roles were for the most part immensely impressive. On opening night, Lisa Daltirus’s Leonora and Antonello Palombi’s Manrico made a compelling pair of lovers. Daltirus is a riveting actress, and aside from one or two moments of questionable intonation she sang superbly, with especially impressive pianissimos in the highest register. Palombi has one of the most easeful and luxuriant tenor voices I have heard lately, though above the stave it becomes a trifle pinched. It was a pity that at the end of an otherwise thrilling Di quella pira he did not heed Verdi’s comment, “If they’re going to add a C, let it be a good C.” His interpolated high note reminded me of George Bernard Shaw’s description of the famous 19th-century tenor Tamberlik as “a mere creaking wreck, whose boasted ut de poitrine [C from the chest] was an eldritch screech which might just as well have been aimed an octave higher.” In the second cast, Anthony Rawls committed the same sin, and I found his voice somewhat lacking in richness and timbral variety in comparison with Palombi’s, while Mary Elizabeth Williams displayed impressive vocal resources, without quite matching Daltirus’s vocal and dramatic intensity.

As Count di Luna in the first cast Gordon Hawkins, whose baritone I have in the past described as ‘honeyed,” was as fluent as ever, crafting an Il balen of telling nuances, with superbly controlled dynamics on the last note. His counterpart in the second cast was Todd Thomas, an equally accomplished performer: his tone is perhaps more cleanly focused, and he was even more convincing in delineating the inner torments of this basically unsavory character. It was in the role of Azucena that the biggest disparity between the two performers made itself felt. After her stunning Judith in last season’s Bluebeard’s Castle, Malgorzata Walewska’s Azucena came as something of a disappointment, fluently sung, but without the element of mezzo- or even alto-ish darkness that is surely essential to the part. Mary Phillips was much more convincing in sound, and surprisingly also in dramatic terms.

At both the performances I witnessed, Vira Slywotzky and Leodigario del Rosario offered strong portrayals of Inez and Ruiz, and Arthur Woodley’s Ferrando was exemplary both in vocal command and acting skills. What with excellent orchestral playing under Yves Abel’s baton, and the customarily powerful contribution from Beth Kirchhoff’s chorus, what we heard would have added up to a totally convincing Trovatore had it not been for some oddities in what we were given to look at.
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