Don Carlo: il di tremendo

On Saturday, I went to the last performance of Don Carlo, and what will be my last performance of the Met season. It was an evening both grand and thrilling, with a musical and dramatic force that reminded me forcibly of what opera's capabilities are. The performance of the Met orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin was nothing less than world-class, and was supremely exciting. They played with drive and nuance throughout, and from the beginning, Verdi's motifs were highlighted and treated with great dignity. Individual and section highlights, too, were all gorgeously handled, honoring both the forward momentum of the score, and its suspense. The singing, too, was excellent; my companion repeatedly asked who the casting director was, which drew my attention to my ignorance of this process. But those responsible certainly deserve praise. This was indeed a cast not only universally strong, but with good chemistry, and some choreography new to this iteration of Nicholas Hytner's 2009 production. More than once during the evening, I found myself thinking that the Met would do well to have more such productions in its rotation: visually striking, thoughtful in interpretation, and with a strong dramatic arc that still leaves room for adaptation to individual singers.

Manon: c'est la l'histoire...

Rooting for these crazy kids: Manon and her Chevalier, Act I
Photo (c) Ken Howard/Met Opera

I attended the opening performance of this season's Manon at the Met, and for fans of stylish, passionate singing, the rest of the run promises to be magnificent. Laurent Pelly's stylish, sinister production I found even more effective in revival than (apparently) I did in its first run. The bourgeois brutality and hypocrisy of which Manon and Des Grieux fall afoul were apparent from the first. And the setting in the fin-de-siècle, with its bustling urban spaces, conspicuous consumption, and religious anxiety (to say nothing of precarious social mobility and the precarious position of women in the public sphere,) really does work remarkably well. My customary raptures over the orchestra must in this case be modified. Their sound, while aptly lush, could be unfocused, and there were occasional lapses in stage-pit synchronization over the course of the evening. Emmanuel Villaume was, however, responsive to the singers in their (many!) challenging arias, and ensembles were well-supported, so matters may improve over the course of the run.

Pari siamo: Rigoletto and the Rat Pack

Saturday's matinee of Rigoletto confirmed that a pretty solid performance of this Verdi masterpiece makes for an above average night (or afternoon) at the opera. Michael Mayer's gaudy production, saturated with the neon artificiality of 1960s Las Vegas, is essentially traditional, adhering closely to the narrative of the libretto. The literalism with which the choreography stuck to the score in the pacing of gestures, embraces, exits and entrances might not be terribly imaginative, but it's functional. There are a number of clever touches--Gilda telling her diary about Gualtier Malde, Sparafucile haunting a dive bar--and the novelty of the visuals drew a pair of my friends up from D.C., and drew audible "ohhs" from the young girl in the row behind us. I'm inclined to give it a pass as a functional if not terribly exciting new production. The brutality of the court was suitably emphasized, and the grittiness of the final act I especially liked. A "God forgive me" from a self-sacrificing soprano can seem merely conventional in sixteenth-century Mantua, but there's no mistaking the genuine terror in a trenchcoat-clad girl hitting her knees on wet asphalt. This brings me to the performance of Diana Damrau, which was technically breathtaking and of impressive dramatic nuance and depth; her Gilda came across as the most fully realized of the principal characters.