Le Comte Ory, Metropolitan Opera, live cinema relay, April 2011

This uniquely Rossinian opera — his penultimate — is wonderful fun, and I’m delighted the Met has put it on, and done so in a cinema screening for the whole world to share. It’s not often performed because it needs three superb singers — in the roles of Count Ory, his page Isolier, and the Countess Adele — and the Met did us proud by having Juan Diego Flórez, Joyce DiDonato, and Diana Damrau in these roles. The superb singing and acting from all three was a treat.

All photos: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

In its original form this was a one-act vaudeville production by Scribe and Delestre-Poirson, produced eight years previously, and they turned it into an opera for Rossini in 1828. The story is based on the exploits of the libidinous Count Ory, a medieval Don Juan who featured in a well-known Picardy legend. Ory and his page are both enamoured of the Countess Adèle whose husband has departed on one of the Crusades. In Act I, Ory disguises himself as a hermit whose religious virtue and ascetic background can help sad people, such as the lonely Countess, to regain their composure. He does this by telling her she needs a lover to give her a zest for life, and the page Isolier sees his chance. Ory soon dissuades the Countess from such a liaison by telling her the young man is page to the terrible Ory, but then he himself is unmasked by his tutor, who’s been searching for him, and the plan fails. But Ory is a man of ingenuity and in the second act he and his companions dress as nuns and gain entrance to the Countess’s home in the midst of a storm. Lots of fun, particularly in a bedroom scene with Ory, Isolier and the Countess all together in a bed. When the Crusaders return it’s all over.

Rossini’s music is partly adapted from his wonderful earlier creation Il Viaggio a Reims, a sort of cantata-opera written for the coronation of Charles X. It may lack the vitality and flow of L’Italiana or Il Barbieri, but as that great Rossini expert Francis Toye writes, “No score of his shows such elegance, such piquancy, such grace”.

The page and the Countess

The production by Bartlett Sher was set in the eighteenth century, with suitable stage props operated from the side by a master of ceremonies who tapped his stick to tell the orchestra when to start. His comings and goings started before the overture as he walked over the stage within the stage. The glorious costumes by Catherine Zuber came from several time periods, and those for the Countess were magnificent, well matched by Diana Damrau’s brilliantly assured singing of the role, particularly in the top range. As her amorously insistent lover, Juan Diego Flórez made a superb entrance as Ory, disguised as a hermit with an obviously fake beard. His presence was riveting, and in the interval conversation with Renee Fleming we learned that he’d been in attendance at home as his wife gave birth a mere half hour before the performance. Congratulations to the Met for magically transporting him, and presumably his dresser, to the theatre on time!

Ory and the Countess

The page is a trouser role, and though it’s not easy for a woman to appear as a young man, Joyce DiDonato’s performance was as good as it gets. She was utterly convincing, and this is a woman I’ve seen as Rosina in Il Barbieri looking the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen — even in a wheelchair, which she used at Covent Garden in July 2009 after a stage accident. Superlatives fail me.

These three principals were well aided by Stéphane Degout as Ory’s friend Raimbaud, Susanne Resmark as the Countess’s companion Ragonde, and Michele Pertusi as the tutor. Fine conducting by Maurizio Benini kept the singers together beautifully and the ensemble at the end of Act I was simply terrific. A better performance of Le Comte Ory is difficult to imagine, and I would love to see the Met do more Rossini in live screenings.

Iphegénie en Tauride, Metropolitan Opera live cinema relay, February 2011

The Trojan War informed Greek literature, which  then informed a European culture that read the great plays by Sophocles and Euripedes. They in turn inspired opera composers such as Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–87) whose new form of opera used music and drama to support one another in a way hitherto unseen. Gluck inspired Wagner, Berlioz and others, and when Iphégenie en Tauride was produced in a German version two years after its premiere in Paris, Mozart attended almost all the rehearsals.

Graham, Domingo and Groves

This was Gluck’s penultimate opera, and the purity of its music endows the story with enormous clarity. The background is that when Agamemnon was ready to embark with the Greek forces  to Troy he was denied a fair wind, and demands were made that he sacrifice his daughter Iphigeneia. He acceded and the ships set off. When he returned home ten years later his wife Klytemnestra killed him, and their daughter Elektra yearned for her brother Orestes to return and take vengeance on his mother. Orestes eventually made his return, committed the deed and was pursued by the furies. In the meantime, in a second version of the story by Euripedes, the goddess Artemis replaced the sacrificial Iphigeneia with a deer at the last moment, transporting the real one to the land of the Taurians, where it was her duty as a priestess to sacrifice any foreigners who landed on the shores of her new land.

In this excellent production by Stephen Wadsworth we see, just before the overture, Artemis intervene to save the life of the sacrificed Iphigeneia, and during the opera we also see the murder of Agamemnon by Klytemnestra, performed by two actors, appearing in a nightmare to Orestes. He was beautifully portrayed by Placido Domingo, well supported by Paul Groves as his comrade Pylades. With Susan Graham giving a wonderful performance as Iphigeneia, Domingo and Groves were superbly matched, and the stresses they suffer, as the two men vie for the honour of being sacrificed to let the other one go, were gloriously portrayed. All three were ably opposed by Gordon Hawkins as the wicked King Thoas of the Taurians.

Pylades and Orestes, all photos by Ken Howard

Gluck’s glorious opera, with its excellent libretto by Nicolas-François Guillard deserves a superb production, and it got it. The costumes by Martin Pakledinaz were excellent, and the choreography for the Taurian soldiers, by Daniel Pelzig, was forcefully danced. These are Scythians from the central Asian steppe, so the Russian-style dancing was entirely appropriate. Gluck is little performed these days, but what a great opportunity this was to see one of his greatest operas, and with fine conducting by Patrick Summers, along with Domingo, Groves and Graham in the main roles one could hardly do better. Susan Graham gave a convincing portrayal of Iphigeneia’s attempts to sacrifice Orestes, and for a moment it looked as if the curse of Atreus would succeed in having her unwittingly kill her own brother. Fortunately she could not manage it, so Pylades had time to bring in Greek warriors to rescue Orestes, enabling him to return and rule his native Mycenae. In Greek tradition the furies (erinyes) were replaced by the eumenides, and Orestes was redeemed.

Iphigeneia and Orestes

This opera by Gluck gives a peerless representation of the conflicting emotions and tensions in this story, and as Schiller wrote, “Never has music moved me so purely and so beautifully as this music has done, it is a world of harmony that penetrates the very soul and causes it to dissolve in sweet and lofty sadness”.

Don Carlo, Metropolitan Opera live relay, December 2010

When it was over the man sitting next to me said, “It doesn’t get any better than this”, and indeed it was a superb performance of what is arguably Verdi’s greatest opera. The story is based on historical characters, though as Verdi himself said, “Nothing in the drama is historical, but it contains a Shakespearean truth and profundity of characterization”.

All photos by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

It’s a human drama of huge proportions, and Ferruccio Furlanetto in the central role of Philip II of Spain showed to perfection the king’s isolated uncertainty and emotional distress. His soliloquy at the start of Act IV was brilliantly expressive. Here is the most powerful ruler in the world, yet he bows to the power of the Church, embodied in the Grand Inquisitor, a blind priest who exudes furious certainty that the deaths of ‘heretics’ and potential rebels fulfils God’s glorious purpose. Eric Halfvarson sang that role very strongly, approving Philip’s hesitant plan to kill his own son Don Carlo, but then demanding the king yield him his trusted advisor, Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa. He was brilliantly sung by Simon Keenlyside whose portrayal of the role is unsurpassable in its sincerity and nobility. The king refuses but has Rodrigo killed later, yet regrets it immediately after. At this point, as Furlanetto sang, “Chi rende a me quell’uom?” (Who will restore to me this man?), I thought immediately of England’s medieval king Henry II and his reaction to the murder of Thomas à Becket. This is powerful stuff by Verdi, and of course Schiller on whose play this opera is based.

Rodrigo and the King

Fortunately this was the five-act version, giving us in Act I the initial encounter between Elisabeth de Valois and Don Carlo in the forest of Fontainebleau. Marina Poplavskaya sang Elisabeth most beautifully, with wonderfully soft high notes, amply showing her vulnerability and strength. She is perfect for this role, which she sang on both the last occasions I’ve seen the opera, at Covent Garden in 2008 and 2009. Roberto Alagna gave an intense and spirited portrayal of Don Carlo, singing with great power and conviction. One feels enormous sympathy for these two young people who are betrothed to one another, yet whose love is proscribed immediately after their first meeting. Philip II decides to take Elisabeth as his wife, rather than let her marry his son, Don Carlo, and though the intensity of their love may be dramatic licence, it’s a historical fact that Carlos died young, as did Elisabeth, who was so distraught at his death that she cried for two days. The myth of their undying love is only aided by their graves in the Escurial lying side by side.

Elisabeth and Don Carlo

This opera has major roles for six principals, the sixth being Princess Eboli who was strongly sung by Anna Smirnova. The machinations of this mendaciously jealous woman are a key to the plot, but why do directors always make her look so unattractive? Her dresses with their lace sleeves were extremely unflattering, yet in real life she was a beautiful woman — and in the opera she’s having an affair with the king for goodness sake. Apart from this one quibble I love Nicholas Hytner’s production with set and costume designs by Bob Crowley — the same production as at Covent Garden. It gives a fine sense of the stateliness of the Spanish throne as well as leaving ample space for the human drama, and the burning of the heretics in the auto da fé scene is a dramatic sight.

The chorus sang powerfully, and among the minor roles, Layla Claire was excellent as the page Tebaldo. The orchestra gave a wonderful rendering of the score under the direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin whose conducting was simply superb.

Madama Butterfly, live relay, Metropolitan Opera, New York, March 2009

This production by the late Anthony Minghella — perhaps the best Butterfly I’ve ever seen — was beautifully directed by his widow Carolyn Choa, who also did the original choreography. It portrayed the child as a puppet, which worked extremely well, allowing Butterfly to act with him rather than with a small boy unable to follow musical cues. Later during the prelude to Act III, Butterfly herself became a puppet, acting with a dancer portraying Pinkerton. The excellent puppetry was by the Blind Summit Theatre, the magnificent costumes by Han Feng, and the clever lighting by Peter Mumford. Altogether, Minghella’s production shows an intimacy that suits this personal tragedy very well, and it came over perfectly in a cinema setting.

The cast did a superb job. Patricia Racette acted the part of Butterfly with sensitivity and emotional conviction, singing with suitably restrained passion. Marcello Giordani was a hedonistic Pinkerton who sang like a god, and Dwayne Croft was outstanding as Sharpless, acting and singing with enormous sensitivity. Maria Zifchak as Suzuki expressed sympathy with Butterfly, while showing she understood the transient nature of Pinkerton’s affections. Back this up with conducting by Patrick Summers that allowed the singers room to express themselves, and this became a great performance of Butterfly.

La Rondine, live relay from the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Jan 2009

If this opera were by a lesser composer than Puccini it would be a forgotten work, and indeed the Met has not staged it in 72 years. Its conception arose when Puccini accepted a lucrative contract from Vienna to write an operetta with eight or ten numbers only, the rest to be spoken dialogue. But he rejected the libretto submitted by the Viennese, and the composition of the text was given to the young Giuseppe Adami, who soon afterwards wrote the libretto for Il Tabarro, a dramatically powerful one-act opera. By contrast, La Rondine hovers uneasily between opera and operetta, and although containing some pretty music and technically difficult passages for the soprano, it never really convinces. The story is certainly more appropriate to an operetta: a lively courtesan wants to see what true romance is really like, so she falls in love; but being unable to explain her history to her lover, she reluctantly returns to her life as a courtesan.

It’s a wonderful vehicle for the soprano, and Angela Gheorghiu sang the main role of Magda beautifully, looking and acting the part to perfection. Roberto Alagna sang Ruggero, a newcomer to Paris and the young man she falls in love with. His ardour seemed forceful and shallow at the same time, but this should be judged as an operetta, and when Samuel Ramey, singing the part of Rambaldo, comes on at the end to take Magda back to his life of wealthy frivolity, the superficiality of the story becomes all too apparent. The other love match, between Prunier and Magda’s maid Lisette was well sung by Marius Brenciu and Lisette Oropresa, and she was a delight, hamming the part up to perfection.

The delightful production by Nicolas Joël, with sets by Ezio Frigerio and costumes by Franca Squarciapino, was already staged in London as well as Toulouse and San Francisco, and the young conductor Marco Armiliato, who also directed the Toulouse production, kept things moving and gave the singers plenty of room to express themselves.