Go for the Music
Saturday afternoon I enjoyed the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Vincenzo Bellini's La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker) projected in HD at a movie theater. The story has to do with complications that ensue after young charmer Amina turns up the bed of a philandering Count. The visuals and the music were gorgeous, with tenor Juan Diego Flórez showing superb sensitivity for the beauty of Bellini's phrasing as Elvino. All of vocalism was very impressive, with Natalie Dessay in the title role, Jennifer Black as Lisa, Jane Bunnell as Teresa, Jeremy Galyon as Alessio (his Met debut), and Michele Pertusi making an excellent impression as Count Rodolfo.
I liked what director Mary Zimmerman did with her previous Met production, Lucia di Lammermoor, and I generally liked the energy that infuses La Sonnambula. But I concur with the New York Times (and many others) in finding that Zimmerman's resetting of the opera from a Swiss village to a Manhattan rehearsal studio undermines Felice Romani's already problematic storyline, making it more confusing. Yet it's still worthwhile to sit back in the movie theater (and, I imagine, the Met itself) and enjoy the extraordinary musicianship that permeates the production.
This season the Met offers three more performances of La Sonnambula (on March 24, March 28, and April 3) and one "encore" performance of the HD version (on April 1 in the US and April 25 in Canada).
Here's Anna Moffo (with Danilo Vega) in a 1956 live telecast of La Sonnambula. Give the aria some time to work its magic.
Source (4:50)
Showing posts with label Lucia di Lammermoor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lucia di Lammermoor. Show all posts
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
LA FILLE DU RÉGIMENT
Wow. Yesterday I snagged myself a family circle standing room ticket to see the Met's much-hyped production of Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment/The Daughter of the Regiment and loved it even though I was suffering from a mysterious severe frontache (a backache in my front).
The hype for this production revolves around tenor Juan Diego Flórez’s big and well-polished first act aria "Ah! Mes Amis," in which he hits a set of high Cs with a lot of grace. This drives the audience wild and sometimes results in a rare encore, as was the case on opening night as well as last night. (He might be performing the encores in every other performance, which means that Monday might be the next and last one.)
Just as the attention given to La Fille du Régiment shouldn't overshadow the worthiness of Die Entführung aus dem Serail/The Abduction from the Seraglio (which ends its run tomorrow [Wednesday] evening), the attention given to Flórez's performance shouldn't overshadow the greatness of the rest of the production, which includes very good performances from Felicity Palmer as the Marquise and Alessandro Corbelli as Sulpice. Truly outstanding is this year's Met poster girl, Natalie Dessay. Early this season she convincingly withered under the oppressive weight of the men in Donizetti's powerfully bleak Lucia di Lammermoor; now, in his comic and high-spirited Fille, she sparkles with vitality reflecting the support her character receives from the titular company of soldiers who raised her. In selection after selection, she sings beautifully while pulling off a set of comical routines. She sings! She irons! She stands on a piano bench! She's utterly marvelous!
Directed by Laurent Pelly, this lively production reflects the benefits of excellent casting, appealing staging, and continuity. Coming here following performances in Europe, the principals have settled far enough into their roles that they can have even more fun with them (a frequent Fille-goer told me that each performance here has been different) but not far enough that it's become routine.
See this Fille if you can. If you haven't already gotten tickets, try for standing room by registering online in advance and then clicking on the ticket category that you want as 10am approaches on the day that you want to go; at the same time, phone the box office and see which option (online or phone) becomes available to you first. If you order online, I recommend going for standing room in the family circle, where there's only one row; if you order over the phone, you could try finding out if front-row standing room orchestra is available. Standing room in the family circle is cramped and not great if you're, say, about 5'2 or shorter, but you might be able to reposition yourself one way or another.
ADDENDUM Rush tickets and possibly stand-by tickets might also be available. The last time I checked about Rush [not available on Friday, May 16], it looked like you should get in line by 1 pm at the latest. By now the optimal arrival time might even be earlier.
Here's Dessay in Act II.
Source (3:00)
For comparison's sake, here's a beautiful but less kinetic and more "conventional" version from the great Joan Sutherland. What a dif! (I remember learning about this opera from Sutherland on the children's television series Who's Afraid of Opera?)
Source (3:54)
Wow. Yesterday I snagged myself a family circle standing room ticket to see the Met's much-hyped production of Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment/The Daughter of the Regiment and loved it even though I was suffering from a mysterious severe frontache (a backache in my front).
The hype for this production revolves around tenor Juan Diego Flórez’s big and well-polished first act aria "Ah! Mes Amis," in which he hits a set of high Cs with a lot of grace. This drives the audience wild and sometimes results in a rare encore, as was the case on opening night as well as last night. (He might be performing the encores in every other performance, which means that Monday might be the next and last one.)
Just as the attention given to La Fille du Régiment shouldn't overshadow the worthiness of Die Entführung aus dem Serail/The Abduction from the Seraglio (which ends its run tomorrow [Wednesday] evening), the attention given to Flórez's performance shouldn't overshadow the greatness of the rest of the production, which includes very good performances from Felicity Palmer as the Marquise and Alessandro Corbelli as Sulpice. Truly outstanding is this year's Met poster girl, Natalie Dessay. Early this season she convincingly withered under the oppressive weight of the men in Donizetti's powerfully bleak Lucia di Lammermoor; now, in his comic and high-spirited Fille, she sparkles with vitality reflecting the support her character receives from the titular company of soldiers who raised her. In selection after selection, she sings beautifully while pulling off a set of comical routines. She sings! She irons! She stands on a piano bench! She's utterly marvelous!
Directed by Laurent Pelly, this lively production reflects the benefits of excellent casting, appealing staging, and continuity. Coming here following performances in Europe, the principals have settled far enough into their roles that they can have even more fun with them (a frequent Fille-goer told me that each performance here has been different) but not far enough that it's become routine.
See this Fille if you can. If you haven't already gotten tickets, try for standing room by registering online in advance and then clicking on the ticket category that you want as 10am approaches on the day that you want to go; at the same time, phone the box office and see which option (online or phone) becomes available to you first. If you order online, I recommend going for standing room in the family circle, where there's only one row; if you order over the phone, you could try finding out if front-row standing room orchestra is available. Standing room in the family circle is cramped and not great if you're, say, about 5'2 or shorter, but you might be able to reposition yourself one way or another.
ADDENDUM Rush tickets and possibly stand-by tickets might also be available. The last time I checked about Rush [not available on Friday, May 16], it looked like you should get in line by 1 pm at the latest. By now the optimal arrival time might even be earlier.
Here's Dessay in Act II.
Source (3:00)
For comparison's sake, here's a beautiful but less kinetic and more "conventional" version from the great Joan Sutherland. What a dif! (I remember learning about this opera from Sutherland on the children's television series Who's Afraid of Opera?)
Source (3:54)
Monday, October 01, 2007
FLOWERS FOR LUCIA
Last week I saw the superb new production of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Metropolitan Opera—and I'm still energized by the experience!
Lucia is an Italian opera from 1835 about a Scottish lass who falls in love with a man who's caught in a blood feud with her own brother! Talk about uncautious!! And ill-fated!!!
The hype about the production revolves around the French diva Natalie Dessay, who deployed cagey acting in her well-shaped interpretations of Lucia's celebrated arias. Another attraction is the direction of Mary Zimmerman, the MacArthur fellowship recipient who won a 2002 Tony for Metamorphoses. With the very generous helping of talent at Zimmerman's disposal, the production is unusually well-rounded as a theatrical as well as a musical event. The three male leads—Mariusz Kwiecien as Enrico (Lucia's brother), Marcello Giordani as Edgardo (Lucia's love), and John Relyea as Raimondo)—all very strong, have roles in which they attempt to dominate Lucia; as the opera unfolds they come to dominate her vocally and also seem to tower over her more and more. She's an incredible shrinking Lucia!
The excellent casting extends to Michaela Martens, who brought her full-bodied voice to the character Alicia and Stephen Costello, a diplomatically sweet-voiced Arturo. And the music! Deborah Hoffman's harp solo (on a Lyon & Healy Style 23 harp?) was exquisite, Cecilia Brauer added armonica atmospherics to the Mad Scene, and the entire orchestra was, as usual, wonderfully responsive to James Levine's baton. (I'm beginning to hear the same kind of push-the-envelope quality in Donizetti's score that I've heard in Beethoven's later work.) The sets ranged from an old-fashioned outdoor scene to a minimalist, somewhat cartoonish, ruin of a castle—strangely yet successfully eclectic.
Hell, I even liked the wedding scene, which Anthony Tommasini (and others) criticized for its clustering of the guests into a photo pose: "Though the moment is beautifully directed, this staging device, again, overwhelmed the stirring performance." Me, I thought it complemented the performance. If I remember correctly, the moment when the flash went off was a dramatic turning point: Yes, Enrico had just succeeded in wedding Lucia to Arturo and estranging her from Edgardo...but, immediately after his contrived "picture perfect" moment, Lucia collapses, a scrim separates her from everyone else, and everything starts to unravel.
The audience Thursday night was generous with its applause, but (to my surprise) there were no flowers for Lucia. So I suppose this is my blog-bouquet for Natalie Dessay and everyone else involved in the production.
$20 rush tickets are available for performances of this particular Lucia on Monday, October 1, 2007 (8:00 pm) and Tuesday, October 9, 2007 (8:00 pm). They go on sale at the Met at 6:00 pm each performance day; on Thursday, it was wise (but, it turned out, unnecessary) to show up by 4:45 pm.
Here's a glimpse of one of Dessay's "Mad Scene" performances. Crazy!
Source (00:34)
Last week I saw the superb new production of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Metropolitan Opera—and I'm still energized by the experience!
Lucia is an Italian opera from 1835 about a Scottish lass who falls in love with a man who's caught in a blood feud with her own brother! Talk about uncautious!! And ill-fated!!!
The hype about the production revolves around the French diva Natalie Dessay, who deployed cagey acting in her well-shaped interpretations of Lucia's celebrated arias. Another attraction is the direction of Mary Zimmerman, the MacArthur fellowship recipient who won a 2002 Tony for Metamorphoses. With the very generous helping of talent at Zimmerman's disposal, the production is unusually well-rounded as a theatrical as well as a musical event. The three male leads—Mariusz Kwiecien as Enrico (Lucia's brother), Marcello Giordani as Edgardo (Lucia's love), and John Relyea as Raimondo)—all very strong, have roles in which they attempt to dominate Lucia; as the opera unfolds they come to dominate her vocally and also seem to tower over her more and more. She's an incredible shrinking Lucia!
The excellent casting extends to Michaela Martens, who brought her full-bodied voice to the character Alicia and Stephen Costello, a diplomatically sweet-voiced Arturo. And the music! Deborah Hoffman's harp solo (on a Lyon & Healy Style 23 harp?) was exquisite, Cecilia Brauer added armonica atmospherics to the Mad Scene, and the entire orchestra was, as usual, wonderfully responsive to James Levine's baton. (I'm beginning to hear the same kind of push-the-envelope quality in Donizetti's score that I've heard in Beethoven's later work.) The sets ranged from an old-fashioned outdoor scene to a minimalist, somewhat cartoonish, ruin of a castle—strangely yet successfully eclectic.
Hell, I even liked the wedding scene, which Anthony Tommasini (and others) criticized for its clustering of the guests into a photo pose: "Though the moment is beautifully directed, this staging device, again, overwhelmed the stirring performance." Me, I thought it complemented the performance. If I remember correctly, the moment when the flash went off was a dramatic turning point: Yes, Enrico had just succeeded in wedding Lucia to Arturo and estranging her from Edgardo...but, immediately after his contrived "picture perfect" moment, Lucia collapses, a scrim separates her from everyone else, and everything starts to unravel.
The audience Thursday night was generous with its applause, but (to my surprise) there were no flowers for Lucia. So I suppose this is my blog-bouquet for Natalie Dessay and everyone else involved in the production.
$20 rush tickets are available for performances of this particular Lucia on Monday, October 1, 2007 (8:00 pm) and Tuesday, October 9, 2007 (8:00 pm). They go on sale at the Met at 6:00 pm each performance day; on Thursday, it was wise (but, it turned out, unnecessary) to show up by 4:45 pm.
Here's a glimpse of one of Dessay's "Mad Scene" performances. Crazy!
Source (00:34)
Monday, September 24, 2007
MOVIES FOR CHEAPSKATES: LUST, CAUTION. Focus Features and The New York Observer are offering New York City screening passes to Lust, Caution.
Directed by Ang Lee and based on a story by Eileen Chang about the dating habits of yours truly, Lust, Caution stars Tony Leung and Joan Chen as well as Tang Wei and Wang Leehom. Rated NC-17, this tale of espionage received a Golden Lion at the 2007 Venice International Film Festival.
Screening Details:
Source (1:46)
Directed by Ang Lee and based on a story by Eileen Chang about the dating habits of yours truly, Lust, Caution stars Tony Leung and Joan Chen as well as Tang Wei and Wang Leehom. Rated NC-17, this tale of espionage received a Golden Lion at the 2007 Venice International Film Festival.
Screening Details:
Date Thursday, September 27, 2007 (same time as Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met)Apply here. Those who get tickets should show up as early as reasonable (an hour in advance is usually safe) to heighten their chances of getting in.
Place Uptown
Time 7:00 pm
Source (1:46)
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