Boccanegra! Boccanegra!

The Met's "must-see" Simon Boccanegra was high on my spring wishlist, but I didn't make it down until the penultimate performance on Tuesday night.  Giancarlo Del Monaco's production was heavy with wood, stone, and velvet.  I do have a soft spot for fourteenth-century costumes, but the hyper-realism (especially of Amelia's garden and the Genoese council chamber) was a bit much for me.  And we never see the sea!  Of course, I'm spoiled, because my first acquaintance with this opera was made through a Christof Loy production (Frankfurt, 2007) I wasn't nearly well-informed enough to appreciate properly.  Feel free to hate me for that; rest assured I am properly ashamed.  On Tuesday, the Personenregie, or lack thereof, was an even bigger problem for me, with stand-and-sing delivery and semaphore-stylized gestures.  It was, then, All About The Singing.  Fortunately, this was strong.

Rêve! Extase! Bonheur!

The Met has announced its 2010-11 season! The press release is excitingly long, but not organized in such a way as to give a convenient overview of what's on. Ah well; for that I'll just have to wait for the glossy brochure advertising subscriptions to turn up on my doorstep. A number of productions from this season and last season are being revived... hard times even for the magnificent Met, I suppose. Looking on the bright side, though, it gives me a chance to explore these operas and productions more fully. In no particular order, a list of Things I Am Most Excited About in the coming season.

Viva Simon, del popolo l'eletto!!!

All three of those exclamation points, I would have you know, are in the libretto of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. I have just finished listening to this opera, which I love, on the Met broadcast (sadly too busy to make it downtown) and am still a little choked up. I made the acquaintance of Boccanegra by seeing it absolutely cold in Frankfurt in 2007, in a strikingly successful minimalist production, with Zeljko Lucic unforgettable in the title role. While preparing oneself for a performance with some combination of score, libretto, recordings, and history may be the nobler path, I had a fantastic evening entirely caught up in the Hitchcockian suspense of Verdi's drama. This time, more prepared but scarcely less on the edge of my seat, I was treated to Placido Domingo as the Doge, the great James Morris as Fiesco, Adrianne Pieczonka as Amelia and Marcello Giordani as Gabriele Adorno. (Stephen Gaertner was Paolo; perhaps my greatest tribute to his performance is that I originally left him out of my list because of being angry at him. Who could hate Simon Boccanegra? Only evil, sneaky conspirators! Edit: Gentle Reader Bearitone has corrected my original listing of Nicola Alaimo in the role.)