OPERA
Winter Vocals, No Warm-Up Needed
Tenor/ baritone duet sparks “La Bohème”; Dudamel at Met
BY DAVID SHENGOLD
At the Met’s January 21 “La Bohème,”
the best singing by far — sonorous
and nuanced — came from the accomplished
Marcello, Artur Rucinski. Returning
to his Met debut role after many years,
star tenor Roberto Alagna exuded plausible
youthful ardor; as always his diction proved exceptional.
Some leathery tone at loud dynamics
and a truly unwise interpolated high C at Act
One’s close distracted from an otherwise interesting
demonstration of his ability still to sing
softly after undertaking Otello and Samson.
The tenor/ baritone duet “O Mimì, tu più non
torna,” beautifully calibrated, furnished the
evening’s highlight.
Maria Agresta, the latest artist termed “the
new great Italian soprano,” seemed to have
deteriorated since her 2013 New York concert
debut in terms of steadiness and focus. She
varied dynamics but with little sense of ease or
legato phrasing; the middle could turn wavery
and louder high notes hard. Was programming
Norma and “Roberto Devereux” a mistake?
Dramatically her knowing Mimì was too consistently
arch; I’ve heard few less moving.
Susanna Phillips’ smiling Musetta went
through the motions professionally but was individual
only in really treating the slow start
of the too-familiar Waltz in a relaxed, Viennese
manner. Unfortunately the vocal charm vanished
when she let her tone unfurl. Elliot Madore
(Schaunard) too often sang with scant regard
for pitch, and Christian Van Horn (Colline)
sounded, as usual, like a good, affable house
bass, not the star his current assignments
suggest. Routinier Marco Armiliato indulged
some mighty slow tempos. The crowd cheered
all the participants as if some Golden Age had
returned. To me, only Act Three of this saurian
Zeffirelli staging still works: I miss the pathos
and youthful vulnerability of James Robinson’s
1914-set City Opera production.
Two nights later, the New York Philharmonic
under Gustavo Dudamel paired Schubert’s
Fourth (“Tragic”) Symphony with Mahler’s
amazing final work, “Das Lied von der Erde”
(“The Song of the Earth”). The early Schubert
reflects the classicizing “italianità” of the young
composer’s studies with Antonio Salieri, and
only in its springy, exciting fourth movement
did it come to life and explain why Dudamel
wanted to program it. By contrast, the Mahler
witnessed the orchestra in gleaming form, with
exceptionally eloquent solo work from the clarinets,
oboe, brass, celesta, and cello. Practised
Mahler interpreter Michelle DeYoung brought
PHOTO MARTY SOHL/ METROPOLITAN OPERA
Artur Rucinski as Marcello stole the honors at the Met’s 1,343rd La
Bohème.”
a somewhat loosened vibrato and inconsistent
projection to her music, but the voice in many
places retained its quality and she managed
the range effectively. In the wondrous “Abschied”
(“Farewell”), DeYoung channeled the
needed emotion, if rather elementally. Her voice
would have been a good balance for that of Simon
O’Neill, but the Heldentenor awoke with no
voice, Andrew Staples — pretty much a dead
loss as Andres in the Met’s “Wozzeck” — filled
in, on little notice but one rehearsal, very musically
indeed, unfazed by the murderous tessitura
if not very characterful as to timbre. A
good save.
Schubert’s somber master-work “Winterreise”
had several high-profile traversals slated
for this less-wintry than-usual season. Eric
Owens deferred his due to illness; Joyce Di-
Donato and Yannick Nézet-Séguin turned in a
fascinating revisionist performance last month,
and Peter Mattei brings his to Zankel January
31. Meanwhile, in the sonically excellent Christ
and St. Stephen’s Church near Lincoln Center,
Dutch baritone Hans Pieter Herman offered a
very compelling, thoroughly idiomatic reading
on January 12.
Herman, who’s recorded a fine Robert Schumann
CD, wields a sonorous, wide-ranging
middleweight baritone, capable of enough vocal
power but also the needed delicacy (triplets
in place, admirable soft attacks, and a “fil di
voce”) for the music. As an experienced actor in
both opera and music theater, he — like DiDonato
— brought to the cycle something beyond
a traditional “presentational” approach: he really
embodied the narrating voice, with vivid
facial expressions and well-considered gestures
and stances along with modulated colors in the
voice. Unlike many recitalists I’ve heard in New
York this year, he performed off book and was
thus directly communicative.
I’d heard the multitalented Lucy Arner for
years as an incisive Italianate conductor and a
deadpan drag king accompanist (Maestro Sergio
Zawa) to the beyond stellar diva Mme. Vera
Galupe-Borszkh (Ira Siff, Herman’s husband).
But I’d never heard Arner in an assignment like
Schubert’s cycle, and it was salutary to hear
such a surely weighted touch and well-calculated
pace in the sober lyricism of “Winterreise.”
The fine collaboration duly impressed an
industry crowd in a most welcome concert.
The American Symphony Orchestra concert
December 19 at Alice Tully Hall showcased
an interesting, illuminating program
devised by Leon Botstein: four works — one
symphonic, three vocal — by the composer
sons of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750),
whose genius was only fully to be recognized
in the early 19th century. The sons — born to
successive wives and actually thus from two
different generations — had varied careers,
but for a while the family star was Carl Philipp
Emanuel Bach (1714-88), whose strong “Magnificat”
proved well worth hearing. Fine flute and
oboe obbligato playing distinguished Wilhelm
Friedemann Bach’s (1710-1784) “Erzittert und
fallet” (“Tremble and falter”), a religious cantata
lasting 30 minutes. The Bard Festival Chorus
showed better intonation and ensemble in runs
than in skips.
Amanda Woodbury has made several welcome
outings as a Met Woglinde and “cover” artist,
her Leila and Juliette superior in freshness
and even projection to the bigger star whose alternate
she was. She also showed a very accomplished
Violetta at Glimmerglass. The voice is
bright, clean and seamless, projecting very well
in several duets as well as in Johann Christoph
Friedrich Bach’s (1732-1795) scena “Die Amerikanerin”
(“The American Woman”), less than 10
minutes of Classical-era exoticism. Her ascent
seems predestined. Personable onstage, highflying
tenor Jack Swanson has garnered good
reports and here he sang very well indeed, with
forthright fluency, secure focus and a nice tonal
shine. Some get excited when they hear sopranos
and tenors destined for Puccini’s Mimì and
Rodolfo; I’d like to hear Woodbury and Swanson
as Mozart’s Constanze and Belmonte.
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