Not that anyone on DK asked, but it’s that time of year again, time for a new season of Metropolitan Opera HD-casts, which actually began last Saturday with Verdi's Macbeth (which 3CM the loser missed, of course, so no such diary last Saturday night). However, things get back into swing, sort of, with the standard opening question:
Anyone see the Met HD-cast today of Le nozze di Figaro?
The Marriage of Figaro has music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, of course, and libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte. As DK'ers who follow opera know, this might not have happened, as there was a nasty public spat earlier this year over contract negotiations between Met Opera management and the Met's union workers (orchestra, stagehands, etc.) that threatened to spiral out of control and derail the 2014-2015 season. While I don’t have time to delve into the details, obviously that worst-case scenario didn’t happen, as both sides reached a settlement about 2 months back (and this diary exists). So discussion of long-term Met Opera fiscal health issues can wait for another diary.
For now, on to the business at hand: the new Met production of Figaro has Richard Eyre as director, who did a truly magnificent job with his Met Carmen a few seasons back (& is revived for HD in 2 weeks). Eyre updated the production to the 1930s, and has done the same here. So how does this one compare? Well….
First, per 3CM’s usual formula for these diaries, some reviews of the production, which was actually the opening night of the new Met season, include these:
(a) Anthony Tommasini, NYT
(b) George Loomis, Financial Times
But going beyond 3CM’s past usual suspects, some other reviews:
(c) David Patrick Stearns, WQXR, Opera-vore blog
(d) Justin Davidson, New York magazine, Vulture blog
(e) Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News
(f) Chris Browner, Columbia Spectator (think about it for a moment; an American college newspaper has an opera review - OK, fine, this is an NYC college newspaper, and an Ivy League college paper at that)
Also, to get you up to speed on the plot (if you haven’t read the original play – you have read the original play, haven’t you?), the synopsis from the Met’s website is here.
Speaking of the original play: even though this opera series (like most of 3CM’s drivel here) is generally not 'political' in terms of the life blood of DK, the original play of Le mariage de Figaro, by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, was probably one of the most celebrated ‘political’ plays of its time. Its politics were, and are, sociological rather than governmental, in its depiction of the clash between the upper and lower classes, with respect to marriage, fidelity, and sexual privilege. The latter specifically refers to the feudal droit du seigneur, the power of the lord of the house to have his pick of the female servants for intimate services. Transferred to the opera, the Count Almaviva has designs on Susanna, who is betrothed to Figaro, the Count’s manservant. (Granted, the idea of recent renunciation of the droit du seigneur doesn’t make much sense in an era well over a century after the idea went into the historical dustbin.)
You also need to remember that in the prequel to The Marriage of Figaro, namely The Barber of Seville, Figaro and Almaviva were working together to save Rosina from a dreadful forced marriage to her guardian, Dr. Bartolo. In this, Figaro and Almaviva succeeded, and Almaviva married Rosina at the end of that play, which made her the Countess Almaviva. Unfortunately, in the space between The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, their marriage soured pretty quickly. The opera doesn’t give any real explanation why, except to say, in one passage of the libretto by Da Ponte, where the Countess and Susanna have this exchange:
Countess: ”Ah, il crudel piu non m’ama!”
Susanna: “E come poi e geloso di voi?”
Countess: ”Come lo sono i moderni mariti:
per sistema infedeli, per genio capricciosi,
e per orgoglio poi tutti gelosi.”
(Countess: “Ah! The cruel man loves me no more!”
Susanna: “Then why is he so jealous of you?”
Countess: “That’s how all modern husbands are!
Systematically unfaithful, brilliantly capricious,
and out of vanity all jealousy.)”
Ouch.
Except…..the opera omits
one bit that’s in the play, which provides a clearer explanation (without condoning the Count’s serial infidelity, of course):
Countess: “He no longer loves me.”
Suzanne: “Then why is he so jealous?”
Countess: “Like all husbands, my dear – from pride – nothing more. Ah, I have loved him too dearly! I have wearied him with my solicitude and tired him with my love. That’s the only offence I have been guilty of….”
(Taken from the Penguin Classics translation by John Wood, published in 1964)
One could guess that an audience of that time, or at least enough of them, when the play and the opera were both new, would have been aware of that line in the play, and mentally filled in the gap when seeing the opera. That’s not automatically the case with audiences now, so that it’s not immediately obvious that there’s something behind why the Count is an unfaithful jerk.
That characterization of the Count is evident with the overture, which as Tommasini noted, has stage business going on over the music, starting with a half-dressed maid frantically trying to get back full-dressed after a session with the Count. On its own terms, the stage business does set up the interpersonal dynamics well, but it does distract from the overture itself, which is always wonderful to hear without visual distraction, aside from watching the orchestra play.
To get the ‘bad news’ over with first, as the set by Rob Howell is literally the first thing that obviously hits you visually, that was the weirdest aspect of the production. Tommasini and Stearns clearly didn’t care for it, and I’m generally with them there, in terms of the big picture aspect. Even on an HD-screen, that set looks oppressive and overwhelming for the singers to deal with. Plus, as implied by conductor James Levine in the pre-recorded intermission chat with general manager Peter Gelb, the lattice work of the set means that the singers’ voices are not projecting back from a solid surface out into the hall, to make for an extra variable in adjusting the balance between the voices and the orchestra.
In this particular instance, the advantage of the HD-moviecast vs. actually being in the opera house (probably the only advantage) is that because the HD-moviecasts require lots of close-to-medium shots of the singers, you can visually tune out the massive nature of the set, besides getting the visual close-ups of the singers’ acting skills, which are generally pretty good. Fortunately, the cast is generally very strong, from the small part of Barbarina (Ying Fang), all the way up through all the 5 principal roles. Of those, the standout for me was the German soprano Marlis Petersen, as Susanna. In terms of looks, Petersen is very handsome (with high cheekbones to match), and more importantly, has a very fine voice, great comic timing, and excellent acting skills. One little touch indicative of the general acting (and thus Eyre’s way with directing the singers) was in Act II, the ‘French farce’ scene in the Countess’ bedroom with the Count about to break down the closet door to find whom he expects to be Cherubino, page to the Countess (and who has a major crush on her, as on all women – Cherubino is a younger and more light-hearted version of the libidinous older Count, if you think about it). However, when he breaks the lock and opens the door, and out steps Susanna, much to everyone’s surprise, after waiting a bit for audience laughter, Petersen simply does a quick curtsy, which Peter Mattei’s Count can only mirror in equally rapid reply. Susanna is the key character in the opera who drives much of the action and is really at the heart of the plot, and Petersen knows how to make the most of it. (A fellow HD-goer said that Petersen gave an unbelievably great performance in Chicago a few seasons back as Lulu, in Alban Berg’s opera of that name. Of course, I didn’t go then, and now having ‘seen’ her in this HD-cast, I now wish that I had.)
In terms of creating a convincing character, American mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard pretty closely matches Petersen in terms of presenting the whole packaging, singing, acting, looks, the lot. Yes, on her own, she is drop-dead gorgeous. But with what appears to be presumably her own natural hair cut short, she also does a great job of trying to act like a over-hormoned adolescent teenage male, including walking awkwardly in high heels (something she would not have an issue with in real life). Remember that at such moments, we’re talking about a female opera singer, playing a male role, who at that point has to pretend to be a girl.
Russian bass (with a smidge perhaps of baritone) Ildar Abdrazakov does a generally good job as Figaro, if perhaps not quite at the same exalted whole-package level as Petersen and Leonard. He does know how to do physical comedy shtick with just the right touch. Swedish baritone Peter Mattei has been singing the Count for years, and clearly knows the part inside out. He does not whitewash the bad-boy nature of the Count at all. The young American soprano Amanda Majeski (who’s sung at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in the past) was probably under the most pressure at the start of the run, because she was scheduled to take on the role of the Countess mid-run, but got bumped into the whole of the run after the withdrawal of Marina Poplavskaya from the first part of the run. Like Abdrazakov, I would characterize her performance as generally good, at least vocally, but she really seemed to have a blast as an ensemble player, playing off of Petersen and Leonard in their scenes together, in sort of a “girl power” spirit.
The last wild card for discussion here is James Levine, the long-time music director at the Met, who has been sidelined in recent years because of health issues that have now put him in a wheelchair for the duration, it seems. From his pacing of this performance, however, you’d never know that, because his pacing is strong and clear, of a score that he too clearly knows inside and out. Host(ess) Renee Fleming, as well as Gelb in the intermission interview, noted that this Saturday matinee was the 75th time that Levine conducted Le nozze di Figaro at the Met. Furthermore, this matinee was Levine’s 2,498th conducted performance there. It’s quite something that his 2,500th performance is nigh.
So given how close things came to disaster at the Met this year, as the various reviews have noted, opera fans have much reason to be grateful that their season is now well under way. So we’re back to the old problems, of filling the house (not the HD-cast presentations at the movie houses in the NYC area – another topic for long discussion in of itself), and fundraising, not to mention the massive headaches surrounding this new production that is set to premiere on Monday (protested mainly, of course, by ‘morans’ who have never seen the work in question - but that’s also a topic for another day).
With that, feel free to:
(a) Discuss today’s HD-cast, or
(b) Observe the standard SNLC protocol.
Or you can do both, which wouldn't bother me ;) .