His stardom was almost immediate after he won the 1989 Cardiff Singer of the World competition, defeating the local talent - Bryn Terfel. In the 90's, his career faltered, but by the turn of the century, and the performances offered this week, he had become the ruling baritone in opera - for 15 years. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2015 and died at 55 two years later. NYTimes obituary here tells some of that story. NPR tells a bit more.
The images in this home country tribute tell a lot about his hold on opera audiences. Highly unusually for an opera star, he never seemed quite to take opera dead seriously. He was lauded not only for lyrical baritone but for his physique and silver hair and his grin.
Watch him perform the famous Pearl Fishers duet with Kauffman - the grin appears around 0.55; yes it is a pretty silly plot!
Hvorostovsky withdrew from the Met's Onegin in 2016, but made a surprise gala performance at their annual gala in May 2017. He chose the most dramatic and tragic aria from a Verdi character - the "Cortigiani" aria from Verdi's Rigoletto.
The Met's roles that we see him in this week are summarised in this 3 minute video. Interestingly, they don’t include Rigoletto. Perhaps he chose it for the Gala for dramatic impact, rather than choosing one of the more romantic roles for which he’s remembered.
Here they are...
Tuesday, February 23 Verdi’s Il Trovatore It's our opera of the week - the Met gives us two productions of Trovatore four years apart. And we'll be playing this highly praised version in our meetings. More about the opera, links to synopsis etc on our webpage here.
Hvorostovsky played the conflicted and arrogant Count di Luna for many years, but this was the most praised performance. (See below for the 2015 Met version.) This production stars Sondra Radvanovsky as Leonora - interesting comments from her about the role - and Hvorostovsky! - here.
We see them together in Masked Ball later this week.
"For me, Leonora is probably the most real of all the characters in the opera, because she's just a young woman who's fallen in love with, as everyone else has done, the wrong man." She's sung the role at least 150 times by this production, but you wouldn't know it. View here her confrontation scene in concert with Hvorostovsky. Dolora Zajick has made the gypsy Azucena her own role over 25 years - and you wouldn't know that either. Tenor Marcelo Álvarez is the 'wrong man'. It's a terrible plot with wonderful music - blockbuster Verdi, conducted by Marco Armiliato. Production by Sir David McVicar. From April 30, 2011.
Wednesday, February 24 Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades Starring Galina Gorchakova, Elisabeth Söderström, Plácido Domingo, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and Nikolai Putilin, conducted by Valery Gergiev. Production by Elijah Moshinsky. From April 15, 1999.
The baritone role is of Prince Yeletsky (who wasn't even in the Pushkin novel) and all about one famous aria. Wait for it! He sang it at the Cardiff Singer of the World 1989 (Ja vas lyublyu (Yeletsky's Aria). Six months after Cardiff, Hvorostovsky made his Moscow debut in a concert performance of The Queen of Spades - and told an interviewer he was already bored with it. '‘I’ve been a full-time Yeletsky for too long!’ he sighed. Well, he’d go on singing it for some time, his final performance coming in 2005 at La Scala.' Here he is at the Marinsky theatre in 2003 in a concert performance.
for information and ideas about the opera, here's our earlier web page.
Thursday, February 25 Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin
The Met's production stars Renée Fleming and is conducted by Valery Gergiev. Production by Robert Carsen was much criticised. From February 24, 2007. Sharp review here.
Onegin is the role for which Hvorostovsky was best most known, and perhaps best suited. Here he is in Mexico, 1997 with Onegin's Act 1 aria - Tatyana is being firmly, kindly? rebuked for her love letter. Here's the aria in this Met performance 10 years later. Guardian article here.
In 2013 Mariusz Kweiksen took the role - not too shabby a performance. And in 2016 he took over when Hvorostovsky withdrew.
In an 1993 interview here he said, "What is interesting is you can play this role in many different ways. It can be even nice. He can be loved by the audience because they would feel sorry for Onegin. Don’t forget that in the last act Onegin becomes completely different person. When he wants to win the love of Tatyana, it changes him a lot, and it changes the subject in this dramatic line in the opera.... It’s one of the most well-known poems of Pushkin, and has such a nobility of the language. It’s very high language, full of sarcasm, full of real humor, and full of really high poetic lines. It’s far too much to even imagine this put into an opera because opera expects some kind of simplicity. "
Here's the final scene. For information and ideas about the opera, go to our earlier webpage here.
Starring Angela Meade, then 'up and coming' soprano, with Marcello Giordani in the tenor lead and Dmitri Hvorostovsky as the king, splendidly costumed and in fine voice. Conducted by Marco Armiliato. Production by Pier Luigi Samaritani. From February 25, 2012.
Another haughty baritone role, this time with big Verdi music. Bachtrack here.
Saturday, February 27 Verdi’s La Traviata Starring Natalie Dessay, Matthew Polenzani, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Germont, father of the tenor hero Alfredo. It's conducted by Fabio Luisi. Production by Willy Decker. From April 14, 2012.
This is the radical minimalist modern production that replaced Zeffirelli's lush Traviata at the Met. Review here. Germont, like Onegin, is a character presenting as cold and unfeeling but softening in the last act.
Interviewed in 1993, when he was making his American operatic debut in Chicago in Traviata, Hvorostovsky said, "Actually I simply can’t do six times for two weeks singing Traviata. It’s quite difficult for me. I have to refresh my mind all the time, otherwise I will be terribly bored from this music. Maybe when I will get a really tired of singing classical stuff — which is very doubtful — maybe I’ll do something different."
Sunday, February 28 Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera
It's a cold, dark production - here's the Met's article about the opera. Bachtrack notes the production rejects the more usual characterisation of Renato, the (baritone) husband, as cold; his 'touching characterization is matched by Hvorostovsky’s unflagging vocal intensity and beautiful tone'.
Starring with him are Sondra Radvanovsky, again, Kathleen Kim, Stephanie Blythe, Marcelo Álvarez, conducted by Fabio Luisi. Production by David Alden. From December 8, 2012.
Monday, February 29 Verdi’s Il Trovatore He's back to repeat the 2011 performance, this time with Netrebko. It was his last Met opera performance. This Trovatore has Anna Netrebko as Leonore. Azucena is still Dolora Zajick and it's conducted by Marco Armiliato. Production by Sir David McVicar. From October 3, 2015.
Listen here to Netrebko's duet with Hvorostovsky's Count di Luna.
A pretty emotional performance - the Observer records: 'He interrupted his hospitalization in London to sing three performances during the Met’s opening weeks. At the singer’s first entrance in the opera, proud and handsome in a Napoleonic uniform, the crowd burst into a volley of applause and bravos so loud and long that the baritone’s in-character scowl gradually melted into a beaming smile. Hand over heart, he stepped forward to take a bow before continuing the opera.' Here's the video. A full description here. At the final curtain, 'in a stunning coup, several dozen white roses were flung onto the stage from the pit by members of the orchestra. Trovatore is not usually an opera that elicits tears, much less by its di Luna, but on Friday evening many in the theater, including an otherwise radiant Netrebko, were seen openly weeping.'
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