Wonderful women in opera

Beverly Sills farewells the Met, 1979

The Met is celebrating women’s history month with a week devoted to female characters who are feisty, funny and formidable. Here's the lineup (dates for Melbourne time.)

Tuesday, March 2 Donizetti’s Don Pasquale It's all about Norina, and this production is all about Beverly Sills. It was the Met's farewell to Sills, and she wowed them! Here's Norina's "I know a few tricks" aria. She was given a lush production of this bel canto farce, and was backed by a fine cast. Details in the review here. The baritone Don is Gabriel Bacquier. Joined by Alfredo Kraus, Håkan Hagegård, and conducted by Nicola Rescigno. Production by John Dexter. From January 11, 1979. NYTimes considers and approves the setting in Victorian period.

Wednesday, March 3 Verdi’s Falstaff It’s been called Verdi’s greatest work and was his last opera. Lots about it on our 2018 website.

This 1992 production has all the sparkle you want. Watch the finale here. Starring wonderful stars as the wonderful Windsor women - Mirella Freni, Barbara Bonney, Marilyn Horne. and Falstaff is played by the very experienced Paul Plishka. Meg Page (Susan Graham), Alice Ford (Mirella Freni) working awhiles with Mistress Quickly (the wonderful Marilyn Horne) and young Nanetta (Barbara Bonney) rule the screen.

. NYTimes commented - way back then!-, ‘It would have been very easy, given contemporary operatic tastes, to turn the plot's ridicule of Falstaff into a campy farce. This is, after all, an opera about excess…But Mr. Plishka gave the role an almost touchingly human quality… This performance found an unusual balance between sympathy and irony, physical exuberance and charm.’

Thursday, March 4 Wagner’s Die Walküre It's all about Wotan, father of most of the characters and doom of all. The ultimate part for a baritone, and in this classic performance, it's James Morris playing the torn and bumbling king of the gods. His portrayal is vastly different from the more recent baritones who've starred in the role. Listen here to his gentle farewell to his daughter.

Morris as the human god. “There have been times I could barely get through it,”

The women of the story in this production are formidable: Starring Hildegard Behrens (above) as Brünnhilde and Jessye Norman as Sieglinde, with Christa Ludwig. Conducted by James Levine. Production by Otto Schenk. From April 8, 1989.

This production was livestreamed last year - read our blog post then. And if you can't view it, at least listen here to Jessye Norman as Sieglinde - singing "O hehrstes Wunder!" in 1989. If you are new to the Wagner Ring Cycle, that earlier post has links to brisk synopses and discussions of the story and the music.

“You felt like a god on that set and in those costumes. In other productions, I felt like a person, because I was fighting the sets and costumes,” Morris said about this production, in this thoughtful interview many years later.

Friday, March 5 Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte Starring Golda Schultz, Kathryn Lewek, Charles Castronovo, Markus Werba, and René Pape, conducted by James Levine. Production by Julie Taymor. From October 14, 2017.

Saturday, March 6 Britten’s Peter Grimes Starring Patricia Racette, as the kindly and strong woman, Ellen, and Anthony Dean Griffey as Grimes, in an apparently brilliant performance. Conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles. Production by John Doyle, his Met debut - interesting comments from him here. 'Few operas explore ambiguity with more piercing clarity and musical specificity than this 1945 work.' NYTimes review here.

The village that judges

From March 15, 2008. Britten's dark but brilliant opera arguably is his best for music about humankind and imagery. 'The cinematographic qualities of Britten’s music are brought out with great skill by the orchestra under veteran Scottish conductor Ronald Runnicles.’ (Bachtrack review here.)

Sunday, March 7 Dvořák’s Rusalka There's a detailed post on this opera in last year's blog here.

This production stars Renée Fleming, Emily Magee, Dolora Zajick, Piotr Beczała, and John Relyea, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Production by Otto Schenk. From February 8, 2014.

Screened several times last year - see our blog then. (Note that as in Il Trovatore, the gypsy is once again played by Dolora Zajick.)

Monday, March 8 - International Women's Day!

Verdi’s La Forza del Destino Starring Leontyne Price, Giuseppe Giacomini, Leo Nucci, and Bonaldo Giaiotti, conducted by James Levine. Production by John Dexter. From March 24, 1984.

Here's the Met's account of Leontyne Price at the Met. And the plot and her character, Leonora? 'It is melodrama in its most undiluted form -- characters who are caricatures, spending all their time in extreme emotional states and blundering through a plot crammed with wild improbabilities, coincidences and absurdities.' But what music! Washington Post review here.

Bachtrack reports that (as we saw in her Aida, livestreamed last month), the voice triumphed and you forgave the wooden acting. But the Met gave us 48 hours to view it. NYTimes ruled that ' it offers one of our century's greatest singers in one of her greatest roles. No soprano has emerged to wear her mantle as becomingly as Leontyne Price still wears it. For her, this should not be missed.' It also has some fabulous Verdi music - starting with That Overture! OA music director recorded insights into the music here when they performed the opera in 2013.

In praise of Hvorostovsky

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.

Onegin for the Royal Opera House 2015 (during cancer treatment)

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.

Friday, February 26 Verdi’s Ernani

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.

More about the opera here.

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.'

'A taste for excess': Zeffirelli and his operas

Nostalgia rules at the Met for the rest of February, first for a classic and controversial Italian producer, then for an adored charismatic Russian baritone. More about the baritone next week.

Zeffirelli comes first. He was a highly controversial figure throughout his career in film, opera and politics, but you wouldn't know it from the Met's website! Here's one of the Met's many celebrations of his work. 'Zeffirelli’s historically informed, intricately detailed, and breathtakingly beautiful approach delighted generations of operagoers.'

So why the controversy and criticism? Tommasini from NYTimes, reviews the works and sees them swing towards 'garish'. 'Even as he stuck stubbornly to a set-is-all, traditionalist style — and a swath of the Met’s audience was stuck there, too — opera was moving on without him.'

Zefirelli created 11 productions for the company over 35 years.

And this week, they are showing us seven.

Doing Tosca: Zeffirelli with Plácido Domingo, Hildegard Behrens, and Cornell MacNeil 1985

Franco Zeffirelli joking with Luciano Pavarotti at the time of their centenary production of Tosca in Rome, 2000.

The delight was mixed with scorn. For opera critics, the productions were flamboyant and fussy with detail, as one critic puts it, 'with more attention paid to décor than to human beings'. That story contains images and videos of some productions and also the fascinating account of his meeting with and making of Joan Sutherland as Lucia. Watch here on Youtube.

It became a big debate. Here's Christian Science Monitor, taking up arms for the producer against a sea of grumbles. 'Director With Taste for Excess' says the New York Times obituary. Here's the Guardian's carefully guarded account of his professional career

It's Franco Zeffirelli Week at the Met.

This week we can marvel at - and discuss - the legendary sets and packed performances, and see how the style developed. We're also given an unusual array of performances by the young Plácido Domingo, starring (Zeffireli-style) in Cav and Pag, '78, La Traviata '82, Tosca '85 and Carmen '97.

Tuesday, February 16 Puccini’s La Bohème

The famous setting for Zeffirelli's Act 2 - how busy can you get?

It's the Met's classic, multiply revived production, overstuffed but brilliant. The Zeffirelli “Bohème” was first staged in 1981, (with Teresa Stratas) and by this production it had had 347 performances, more than any other Met production. And lots of criticism, especially for what NYTimes described as the overstuffed, hyper-realistic sets . (Video here of the management of those massive sets. ) Bachtrack remarks, "Act II has enough people on stage to make any fire marshal nervous." Somewhere in there are the two pairs of lovers: Angela Gheorghiu and Ramón Vargas, Ludovic Tézier, and Ainhoa Arteta. Production by Franco Zeffirelli. From April 5, 2008.

The diva and the director

There's a fascinating video of Zeffirelli's direction of this production here. He talks about his relation to Puccini as he works with the Met's amazing stages "in the best place at the right moment", he says. And here's an interview about the production itself.

Wednesday, February 17 Verdi’s Falstaff Tommasini , regretting Zeffirelli's excesses, remembered this, his first Met production, as the 'lovingly detailed, freshly rethought Renaissance “Falstaff” '

This is the classic production with the wonderful women of the early 90s. (It screened online for us in July - and again in October full detail here in our blog. It's brilliantly sung and brilliantly paced - if you missed it then, try to grab it now.)

Starring Marilyn Horne, and Paul Plishka (above) with Mirella Freni and Barbara Bonney - what a dream cast! Conducted by James Levine. From October 10, 1992.

Want a background to Verdi? Here's our webpage in 2018.

Thursday, February 18 Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci

This precious pair of verismo operas (usually performed together and rudely referred to as Cav and Pag) marked a milestone in opera history. And Zeffirelli's productions were a milestone for the met. Read about the operas and this production in our website here. And for detail on Pagliacci, and the great tenors who sang this part, go to our blog post here.

This livestream offers a historic Met performance from 1978 - an early Zeffirelli exercise in verismo realism, lovingly creating the Italian landscapes and social life. It also is a rare Cav/Pag performance - the tenor ( Plácido Domingo) sings both lead roles on the same night in opera's most popular verismo double-bill. Review of both operas here. It's hard not to marvel at Zeffirelli's loving creation of the Italian rustic town that destroys the ruined Santuzza. You know the Intermezzo - here's the Met orchestra playing it during lockdown.

"La commedia è finita!!"

It's Zeffirelli's classic production. The women destroyed are Tatiana Troyanos and Teresa Stratas, Conducted by James Levine. From April 5, 1978.

Listen here to the last scene of Pagliacci - Teresa Stratas is his unfaithful wife Nedda.

Friday, February 19 Puccini’s Tosca Do you know Tosca? Here's our webpage intro. It's for many the ultimate opera, and no opera is more realist in its setting - in character, time and place. Read our blog post here with the images of those sites Zeffirelli lovingly recreates. There have been a lot of Toscas at the Met - here's the history. But Zeffirelli's became the classic one. One review says the production is 'breathtaking in its splendor and theatrical impact'.

Starring Hildegard Behrens, Plácido Domingo, and Cornell MacNeil, conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli. Production by Franco Zeffirelli. From March 27, 1985.

This was a new production of Tosca, and Zeffirelli pictured in historic detail the grandeur of Rome, and its decadence.

Hildegard Behrens is Tosca, a diva in love with artist Cavaradossi (Plácido Domingo). Listen here to their Act1 love duet. Their enemy, Scarpia, the evil chief of police is played by Cornell MacNeil.)

A fascinating piece about Behrens here.

For a background to Pucchini, there's a post here.

Saturday, February 20 Mozart’s Don Giovanni

Karita Mattila as Donna Elvira with Samuel Ramey as the Don

Starring Carol Vaness, Karita Mattila, Dawn Upshaw, Jerry Hadley, Samuel Ramey, Ferrucio Furlanetto, and Kurt Moll, conducted by James Levine. Production by Franco Zeffirelli. From April 5, 1990.

Hear the criticism coming in....! NYTimes commented that Zeffirelli's 'single-minded emphasis on visual grandeur' throws the opera 'off center psychologically... Mr. Zeffirelli seems more interested in creating striking stage pictures than in stimulating thought.' It's an interesting review. And I found this snarly and very negative account.

Samuel Ramey is Don Giovanni, pursued by Finnish star Karita Mattila (Donna Elvira) in her Met debut season and role. She went on to many lead roles at the Met and in Europe - (and provided a hilarious cameo in a Covid-time opera last year!) There's an interview with Mattila here. The avenging fury of Donna Anna is by Carol Vaness.

Sunday, February 21 Bizet’s Carmen

Starring..? Well, Angela Gheorghiu gets star billing - she's Micaëla, and yes, Plácido Domingo stars again, singing a stolid Don Jose - here's their big duet.

Mezzo Waltraud Meier (left) was Carmen, but the Met announcements don't feature her - Gheorghiu was the coming star and she gets the bold type.

Here's Meier with Domingo in the only ( very poor quality) video I could find. Conducted by James Levine. Production Zeffirelli. March 25, 1997.

This course began with Carmen - and our background to Bizet and his most famous opera is here.

Monday, February 22 Puccini’s Turandot This production was the last straw for Zeffirelli critics. Tommasini again: 'When the lights rise on the massive courtyard of the imperial palace in this fantasy China, we see expanses of celestial whites, silvers and golds, a glittering spectacle so bright you almost have to squint. The set manages to be at once magnificent and cheap... These stagings were not just singer- and conductor-proof. They were drama-proof, almost like a parody of opera.'

Bachtrack review is here.

Starring Maria Guleghina, Marina Poplavskaya, Marcello Giordani, and Samuel Ramey again, conducted by Andris Nelsons. Production by Franco Zeffirelli. From November 7, 2009.

And way back, there was La Traviata

Want a backgrounder to La Traviata? Here's our 2018 webpage.

The Met didn't record Zeffirelli's on stage Traviata, - presumably because it had already made the film with him. Zeffirelli produced the Verdi opera for other opera houses, before he made the film starring Stratas and yes, Domingo - the two who starred in Pagliacci. A piece on Stratas at the Met is here.

Zeffirelli had a long history with this opera - he'd produced a La Traviata with Maria Callas in Dallas, Texas, in 1958. Decadence and romance were his stuff, and this film was a huge success. Frequently referred to as Zeffirelli's last masterpiece, this production was most recently performed at his death in Verona. (Oh to be there!)

La Traviata was first performed at the Met within a month of the company’s opening in 1883 but then was retired during a subsequent all-German period. After returning to the schedule in 1892, it has since been performed more than a thousand times. Zeffirelli created two stagings for the company, one in 1989 and another in 1998. The film was 1982 - watch an excerpt from Act 1 here. NYTimes here.