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.

Le veau d'or est toujours debout: Faust at the Met

For Faust's much-touted return to the Met stage, the Met orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin gave Gounod's score of their best, and brought out the best in it. There was fine singing, as well, with René Pape a standout as a magnificent Méphistophélès. Des McAnuff's production, however, lacked coherence, and lacked likewise a clear central idea to give either intellectual or emotional urgency to the drama. As a gentleman in front of me in line for champagne at the interval observed, it's hard to get romance going in a chemistry lab. If McAnuff had picked a chemistry lab of the early twentieth century and stuck to it--the Devil with an offer for unscrupulous career advancement, Marguerite as a bachelor girl secretary, perhaps--this might have been more effective. Going a less literal route could work as well. But the religious and romantic sentimentality of the central acts was left untouched, and, as far as I could tell, played without irony and without commentary, which made very little sense in this context. Also, I can't help but take issue with a production that chooses to evoke two of the twentieth century's greatest collective traumas--the First World War and the detonation of the atom bomb--and then not integrate them in the drama in a way that makes it clear how they affect the characters.

Höheres gilt es als Zeitvertreib

Kaiser and Fleming; (c) Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Wort oder Ton? Ton und Wort... The Met's elegant Capriccio helped me understand better how Richard Strauss' last opera could be both a concatenation of playful jokes about the operatic genre, with heavy helpings of Straussian irony, and a thoughtful exploration of some of the unresolved (unresolvable?) questions of how opera--and all art--moves us, and why.  In the hands of an accomplished cast, the conversation in this conversation piece seemed both witty and genuinely-felt, rather than merely self-absorbed (this was a problem I had while merely reading the libretto and listening to recordings, I admit. And yes, I realize how funny it is that that should be the case with this particular opera.)  I may never become a devotee of Renee Fleming, but I think she's at her best in Strauss, and her diva-charisma was of not insignificant importance to creating a credible Madeleine.  Those in the countess's orbit ranged from creditable to excitingly good, so I had a lovely night, though I never experienced the quasi-mystical emotional release Madeleine extols.

From Vision to Inheritance: Nixon in China at the Met

I wasn't sure what to expect from Nixon in China, as most of the press coverage I had read beforehand focused on the opera as event.  An event it certainly was; I thought it was also a fascinating opera.  I came out haunted by the music, humming the music, and with lots of thoughts to mull.  From an edgy opening chorus backed by ominously propulsive music to the ambiguous, elegiac conclusion, via dizzying ensembles and interchanges, a complex drama was kept taut through Adams' characteristically inventive orchestration and a fascinating libretto.