Five Fresh FroSchs

Ladies, we went on a pilgrimage to five cities in thirteen months to see Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten. Each evening reawakened us to flesh, yet a curious silence had continued to cage our thoughts, a reluctance to break the viscous reverie. But now the return of my favorite Strauss to Sieglinde's home the Met after an eleven-year absence is inciting us to break this caution and revive the spirits in these diaries. What glints of fraying memory can we protect from the unstoppable winds of age? And can you tell that this paragraph was written melodramatically by ChatGPT?

Strauss DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN. Wiener Staatsoper, 21.X.2023; c. Thielemann; van den Heever, Pankratova, Baumgartner, Schager, Volle.

The first was in VIENNA, at the Wiener Staatsoper, in October 2023, with none other than Maestro Christian Thielemann at the helm. What an evening to herald Sieglinde’s first time at the Staatsoper— and to see a FroSch, which coincidentally also premiered in this theater in 1919; led by the very conductor who seduced her in December 2001 when he brought a new production to the Met (still the current Wernicke production); spotlighting the crystal voice of Deborah Voigt (Empress) and the wallop of Gabriele Schnaut (Dyer’s Wife), two powerhouses born to sing those roles. Looking back to 2001, when just after 9/11 and having finished a Ph.D., this music among all others filled the emptiness and that up to this day bubbles up and unsettles. That was also the time that Sieglinde started to attend multiple evenings of the same run, finding her place in the famed balcony boxes where sound and cost find a happy optimum. This was also, if memory serves, the first time we threw confetti at the Met (for Voigt, yes). Indeed, Vienna’s 2023 FroSch brought us back to those heady days, with Thielemann still injecting surprises in music we felt we knew inside and out, and with the astonishing Empress of Elza van den Heever, the uncanny sonic reincarnation of Deborah Voigt, dominating an evening of superb singers—among them, a tireless Elena Pankratova (Dyer’s Wife), a graceful Tomasz Konieczny (Barak), and a tired yet strangely alluring Andreas Schager (Emperor).

Strauss DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN. Opera de Lyon, 22.X.2023; c. Rustioni; Jakubiak, Braid, Ammann, Wolfsteiner, Wagner.

The second was in LYON, at the Opera de Lyon the following day, a stopover on my way back to Paris by train, would you believe?! This crazy trip in the fall of 2023 was precipitated by the necessity to be at Waltraud Meier’s abschied at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, as Klytamnestra, among her signature roles in an opera company that was her spiritual home. I was already in Europe that week to visit friends and to catch Kirill Serebrennikov’s dreamy Lohengrin in Paris. In truth Meier’s momentous farewell to the stage would have been sufficient reason to leave my friends back in Paris for the weekend, but what sealed the weekend junket was the aforementioned Thielemann FroSch in Vienna only a short hop from Berlin. But since our flight back to New York was originating from Paris, we had to decipher routes from Vienna. That was when we stumbled upon a run of FroSch tucked quietly in Lyon, which we realized was just a fast direct train from CDG. Opera de Lyon is not stuff of Sieglinde’s daydreams but Maestro Daniele Rustioni is. Charismatic, energetic, yummy, he conducted a Falstaff at the Met in 2023 that was shimmering. Rustioni has been Opera de Lyon’s principal conductor since 2017 and just recently announced as the Met’s principal guest conductor beginning 2025: we are beyond thrilled with this development. Sieglinde made sure to sit right above the orchestra to have a full view of this Maestro’s gyrations. Indeed, he crafted a fresh and alert FroSch, distinct from Thielemann’s but as vivid, with a youthful cast and orchestra that responded positively to his generous encouragement. We saw him wink at the singers and the principal cellist to signal his praise and we were instantly in love. Among the standouts was soprano Ambur Braid, who sang a fully alive and intense Dyer’s Wife, and who along with Josef Wagner’s Barak actually brought tears to our eyes in their sensitive Act I duet. (It may have been the jetlag too that made us a bit sensitive and weepy.)

Strauss DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN. Semperoper Dresden, 23.III.2024; c. Thielemann; Nylund, Värelä, Herlitzius, Cutler, Pushniak.

The third was in DRESDEN, at the Semperoper this past spring, in March 2024. We were in Berlin to see Philippe Jordan’s Ring Cycle at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, and who would not travel two hours by train to see a FroSch sandwiched between the Siegfried and the Götterdämmerung evenings? And does seeing the same opera in three cities (and counting) make us automatic Thielemann groupies? How we wish they had courted him instead of the unsalvageable Yannick Nézet-Séguin when they were seeking James Levine’s replacement a few years back. We couldn’t even imagine the impact of that without pulling our wigs and wailing. So yes, it was Maestro Thielemann once more, holding court in his stately opera house, with Camilla Nylund dazzling as the Empress and Miina Liisa Värelä (can I buy a vowel?) as a fantastic Dyer’s Wife, alongside Eric Cutler as a sympathetic Emperor. Having seen Evelyn Herlitzius as Kundry at the Met, we declare that she is much more effective in a smaller venue: her Amme was remarkably expressive. Dresdeners love their Semperoper company and it was thrilling to finally experience this storied opera house, the site of many world premieres that include many of Strauss’s works (Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, and on and on). And we can’t recall seeing an entire orchestra take a curtain call onstage (in an opera that is not the Ring), which was nice to see, if a bit pompous. But the audience was so game to give a lusty standing ovation, and no one left until the last curtain call. We wouldn’t be surprised at all if that was a term in Thielemann’s contract with the city.

Strauss DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN. Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden, 9.XI.2024; c. Trinks; Nylund, Pankratova, Schuster, Schager, Pushniak.

And the fourth was in BERLIN just a few weeks ago, at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, under the baton of Maestro Constantin Trinks, who is new to us. We sensed a rapport between Trinks and the Staatskapelle Berlin, and it paid dividends in the intimacy that surprised us coming from what we know to be such a bombastic score. Camilla Nylund once again dominated the occasion as the Empress, pumping out liquid gold that seared deeper as the night unfolded. Like Herlitzius, Michaela Schuster ought to be heard in smaller spaces where one can appreciate the intelligence and comic energy she brings to the role of Die Amme. In this we saw, once again, Elena Pankratova tear up the role of the Dyer’s Wife. Andreas Schager is beloved in these parts and can do no wrong, even with an over-the-hill Emperor fighting through the role’s high tessitura. Ever the creature of the side boxes, Sieglinde is also now appreciating the intensity of the front row seats, where the seats quiver with the orchestra’s every turn and where a blasting fff from a singer can be a health hazard. And should we sing the praise for the newly refurbished Staatsoper Unter den Linden, truly the crown jewel of the operatic universe.

Strauss DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN. Met Opera, 29.XI.2024; c. Nézet-Séguin; van den Heever, Lindstrom, Stemme, Thomas, Volle.

Which brings us to the fifth, in our own backyard NEW YORK CITY, the Met resurrecting Herbert Wernicke’s literally dazzling production of mirrors, light effects, and sharp reflections, easily my favorite production of the five. The short king on the podium, Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin (let's henceforth refer to as YNS), knows two settings and two settings only—melodrama and fortissimo. These settings work serviceably for this opera, making its surface shine, but after hearing the triumvirate of Thielemann, Rustioni, and Trinks imagine this work, YNS once again comes off as a boorish creature of Hollywood. With some exceptions (notably his Met Parsifal in 2018), there is little depth in his conducting, all primary color and no shading, sadly nothing to contribute to the art. To be charitable for a moment, FroSch benefits from a conductor who can unleash the expansive sound of a huge orchestra, and this our maestro did well, shamelessly challenging every singer on stage. Michael Volle, this run’s Barak, normally deploying a sweet and dignified baritone which was on full display in Act I, was visibly wrestling with the monstrous Act III orchestra. We enjoyed that contest for sure. As the Dyer’s Wife, Soprano Lise Lindstom, in our first hearing, has a light but piercing soprano, which became fuller as the evening unfolded. Tenor Russell Thomas, decorous and proper, appeared to have won his battle with the Emperor’s showy, highflying pieces. Nina Stemme, originally slated to sing the Dyer’s Wife, went full blast as Die Amme in her role debut, her tattered, hard-edged soprano infusing the character fittingly.

The star of the Met evening, the star of the five FroSchs, and among the shiniest stars of Sieglinde’s current pantheon is Elza van den Heever, Thielemann’s Empress in Vienna last year, reprising the role at the Met this season. It would have been thrilling enough to receive a voice to equal pre-gastric-bypass Deborah Voigt’s, but she is more than a copy. Her voice, more emotive than Voigt’s, cuts through any thick orchestration effortlessly, but not the kind of squeal that Lise Davidsen dispenses (our other favorite soprano these days, by the way). We foretell that someday, there will be a Die Walküre that will feature van den Heever’s Sieglinde opposite Lise Davidsen’s Brünnhilde, and that would be a true highlight of this generation’s Wagner fags’ lives. In other words, van den Heever’s voice remains fully feminine while engaging with a massive orchestra, while Davidsen’s becomes simply extraterrestrial. Van den Heever’s pinpoint tonal precision up in the stratosphere is also noteworthy, as is her ability to project chest tones that appear fully integrated with such an even column of sound. The role of the Empress is the longest of the opera, and here van den Heever’s stamina triumphs with room to spare. We have heard her sing Chrysothemis, Senta, and Elisabeth at the Met, which were predictable successes. But she has also surprised us with an endearing and florid Rodelinda, also at the Met, which rivals only Renee Fleming’s singular achievement in the role; and with a devastating Salome we saw in Paris, which she sang with the Herodias of the fearsome Karita Mattila, our last great Salome at the Met. Tell us because we don’t know anyone else who has Rodelinda and Salome in their repertoire, and then singing both in the same fucking year! That is unbelievable, and it shows the full capacity of her artistry. In the spring, van den Heever is scheduled to reprise her Salome here in New York, to yet another guaranteed triumph. We predict that by the end of that run, she will have utterly captured the house diva status at the Met alongside Lise Davidsen.

Sieglinde and I will see this opera a few more times in the next couple of weeks. Thank you, universe, for such a happy journey.

Grounded should be grounded

Tesori GROUNDED, Met Opera 23.IX.24; c. Nezet-Seguin; D'Angelo, Bliss, Dehn, Miller, Grimsley.

Likely the only time the word "Cinnabon" will be uttered from the Met stage, in an opera that is as saccharine and trite as a cinnabon roll. Composer Jeanine Tesori stumbled upon moments of interest but never held our attention for more than a minute. You'd think an opera about drones and war would elicit music of some novelty if not fractured horror. Instead we got a sweeepingly forgettable melodrama that mezzo-soprano Emily D'Angelo's brilliance could not rescue. The one silver lining of the Met's opening night, D'Angelo is indeed a revelation. Other than that, a sad waste of everyone's couture.

Met flex

A heady time for opera stoners these past few days, with the Met opening up single tickets to subscribers last Thursday and to the general public this coming Monday. Sieglinde chose to cut the line this year and put together a so-called "flex" subscription consisting of at least six operas. What's odd is that they have to be different operas. Someone please explain to me why I can't be a "flex" subscriber just by opting to go to each of the six performances of Die Frau ohne Schatten. Why are they discriminating against us? And who has this idea of going to just one evening of a work you absolutely can't live without? Who does that? The Met should be staffed with more opera fans.

So yes, the issue occupying our recent meditations was to choose six. Splendidly, this coming season is actually more thrilling than the last, which featured only Tannhäuser and La Forza del Destino amidst a bunch of reruns and B-sides. This season, we finally have the FroSch revival we've all been waiting for, and this spectacle alone surpasses many recent seasons. And with the astonishing Elza van den Heever as the Empress! We are complete. (Sieglinde will speak more about her eternal love affair with this opera later on.) So which five did she lump with FroSch to make a "flex"? Well, Salome, of course, again with dear Elza. Fidelio also makes the list, with the terrifying giant Lise Davidsen easing into her fated fach and the ageless René Pape whom we haven't seen at the Met since 2021. Tosca isn't normally a contender but this time, since La Davidsen is getting her Italian itch scratched before she unleashes her entire soul in Wagner, why not catch a couple of those too? I am genuinely curious about Aidanamar and Antony & Cleopatra, so there you have it, ostensibly Sieglinde's six-evening season. Shortly after "flexing", we dived back into the Met website to hoard multiple tickets to FroSch, Salome, and Fidelio--which, if you were paying attention, was the entire point of this charade.

We will go to other evenings, but those will be on a case by case basis and depend on many boring factors (work, life, meds, etc.). Plus, Sieglinde will travel for opera! She's been doing that the past couple of years, and will get to recount the blow-by-blow here in Her Diaries ... eventually.

To be true is half the battle

Kathleen Battle RECITAL, Met Opera 12.V.24; Bridget Kibbey (harp), Chico Pinheiro (guitar).

What a beautiful fiasco. Something Sieglinde will never forgive is amplification of any kind in an opera house. Here was Kathleen Battle, Diva, 76 this year but from the boxes looked very much like her posters for this headline spectacular; returning triumphantly to the Met stage in a solo recital, the stuff of Joe Volpe's nightmares; possessing even today top notes like she was 36, the stuff of Ailyn Perez's dreams. Sure, there was the Underground Railroad concert in 2016, but that was about more than her Highness, with a major choir and other musicians and artists (Cicely Tyson, Wynton Marsalis, Cyrus Chestnut ...) participating to convey an actual serious message. This evening, her event was about her alone, and the way she had everyone wait while she leafed through her three-ring binder of music forwards and backwards and sideways, and unclasped it flippantly to take out some random pages and return others would impress even Joe Volpe--OMG what a masterclass in Diva that Sieglinde should emulate in her Biochemistry classes. So Kathy's first song, a Purcell, tested her prep and while a bit tentative, was properly placed, I thought, and projected remarkably well. But then when the second piece, from Semele, unfolded with unexpected bravado, the amplification revealed itself by degrees and by the end of the first segment of song I would say even Kathy's aspirations between phrases were more present than Asmik Grigorian's fff the day before (see below). Who at the Met decided that this was OK, and how did the Diva not decipher this intervention as a defeat? Her top notes--it was all there!--would have floated around the auditorium without any aid and invoked awe, and would have reminded every ear about the singular miracle of this art form. And why would Sieglinde have minded leaning forward to catch any whispered notes, and if there are rumpled patches forgive and move on to the next glorious phrase? But by the second half of the program, while the entire auditorium erupted indecorously after every piece, the experience reduced in Sieglinde's senses to a mediated admiration, akin to watching a YouTube of a memorable event, speakers in full blast. This would have been the first time Sieglinde's heard Kathleen Battle live, but alas! Yet still, after hearing the expected "Sweet Low, Sweet Chariot" encore, everyone stood grateful to have heard lovely echoes, though receding in time and eluding what shards are left of tradition.

Matinee meh

Puccini MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Met Opera 11.V.24; c. Zhang; Grigorian, DeShong, Tetelman, Meachem.

Hopeful anticipation for Asmik Grigorian turned to mush as her Butterfly drooled the touchstone "Ah! m'ha scordata" in a supposed peak of Act II. Does she know that spinto means pushed, the Met is the largest house in the known universe, Sieglinde is perched in her high box with such hopeful anticipation for a soprano who is coming to New York with unusual advance notice, and therefore was expecting hints of blood and acid in "Ah! m'ha scordata"? No one expects a Renata Scotto, for sure, but can we have at least a Cristina Gallardo-Domas this generation? Sieglinde dreamed Grigorian would circle the pantheon (not the Pantheon), but instead saw her flap her cut, undecorative wings to zero effect, like used tissue swirling on the Columbus Avenue sidewalk. Maybe that's too mean. Grigorian did deliver a heartrending "Ei torna e m'ama", which her flappers avidly applauded. But those moments were, uhm, momentary.

So what happened? Everyone can agree that Grigorian has modest sonic power, but that issue never stopped Gallardo-Domas or Veronica Villaroel, two women dear to Sieglinde's heart, both of whom found ways to harness their wares full-force and focus their will to shake the walls. Grigorian also has an muddled middle, at times almost spoken and washed of vibrato. Other Butterflys of Sieglinde's 30 years of opera going include the legend Diana Soviero, femme fatale Catherine Malfitano, Michele Crider, and Particia Racette, ladies who, in their own way, gave the illusion of transcending physics and, in effect, reify the pathos of the role beyond the text. Grigorian sounded like she was saving her voice for something else. Such a soprano has no business singing Butterfly at the Met. Perhaps in smaller houses in Europe she will flourish.

Meanwhile, Maestra Xian Zhang (also debuting this season) led a tumultuous and vitally present orchesta; she should be invited for more. Jonathan Tetelman is handsome as Pinkerton, with a clean voice but lacking that unmistakable ring we've come to expect from our Puccini tenors. As a sorrowful Suzuki, Elizabeth DeShong is the one singer on stage who woke up Sieglinde.The Minghella is aging gracefully, but still aging.

(Just like old times; let's see how long this lasts.)

The Empress Reawakens

OK, since late 2022 Sieglinde's been to a few more spectacles for sure, some in opera houses she'd never visited before. How can she restart this baby amidst this thrilling gloom? But the fire hydrant of life continues to spew experiences, her impressions rushing down the drain, emulsifying in the gray soup. Posts from decades ago, here in this blog, relive traces of faces and sound. As she reawakens, she looks around and finds that some recent feelings are also worth encoding, for the time when all she will have are these words.

Unwarranted condescension

Zachary Woolfe's account of the premiere night of The Hours for the New York Times is ungenerous and petty. It opens with an unsubtle swipe at soprano Renée Fleming:

“The Hours” — a new opera based on the 1998 novel and the 2002 film it inspired — features a redoubtable trio of prima donnas. And it was conceived as a vehicle for one of them, the soprano Renée Fleming, who is using it as her return to the Metropolitan Opera after five years.

But on Tuesday, when the Met gave “The Hours” its staged premiere, only one of this trio of stars really shone: the mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, sounding as confident and fresh, as sonorous and subtle, as she ever has in this theater.

If his application of the word "using" suggests a whiff of desperation on Fleming's part, his direct comparison with Joyce DiDonato, who is currently relishing the height of her career, makes sure you get the message. You'd have to read through a lot of twaddle to understand what was wrong with Renée's performance:

The poignancy of the plot is amplified by Fleming, who has returned to the Met’s stage sounding pale: not frail or ugly, but at first almost inaudible and by the end underpowered, a pencil sketch of her former plushness. Having bid farewell to the standard repertory, this diva never wanted to age into opera’s supporting mother characters, and she has the influence to commission works like this, in which she can still be cast as the lead.

But just as Clarissa Vaughan throbs with nostalgia for her life a few decades before, so we listen to Fleming at this point in her career and hear, deep in our ears, her supreme nights in this theater in the 1990s and early 2000s: as Mozart’s Countess, Verdi’s Desdemona, Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, Tchaikovsky’s Tatyana.

It is curious that Woolfe, who only this year became the New York Times's chief classical music critic, and who, prior to 2009 had not written anything of substance about music performance in New York, would talk about "supreme nights" in the 1990s and early 2000s, as if (a) he had been to all those performances, and (b) any other Fleming nights after the early 2000s were somehow less than supreme, hinting at a noticeable decline. Was he really there in the auditorium for her farewell to the Met stage as the Marchallin just five years ago? Someone else was sent to review it for the paper--Anthony Tommasini, a gentleman who approached artists with respect and measured his words with a long perspective. And someone else was sent to cover her final performance and thunderous, confetti-laden ovation that ensued. For Woolfe to highlight those years, which were a quarter century ago, as prescribed markers from which to judge a lyric soprano voice in 2022 is cruel and unkind. We all know this year's Fleming ain't the 1995 or the 2000 vintage; does it add anything to then conclude from this a failing, even a defeat, in the guise of borrowed nostalgia? Appraising Fleming to be "a pencil sketch of her former plushness" dismisses any value older vocal artists can contribute to the art form. And it's also not true--I can say this after seeing two consecutive evenings of the The Hours, from the same seat I've occupied throughout the two decades she's sung for me. (She is back in opulent resplendence, if you ask me.) We should mention as well that Fleming's contribution to this stage continued to flourish after the mid-2000's, with a spate of thrilling Rodelinda's (do you remember those magical evenings, Dear Zach?), sumptuous Rusalka's and Thaïs's, and ravishing Violetta's, not to mention the daring Armida's and the truly magnificent Gräfin's (in Capriccio). I'd be very impressed if Woolfe was there for even a handful of those evenings.

How many new operas come to the Met stage these days? When its not talking trash about Fleming, Woolfe's review amounts to a pile of catty commentary about the music and the production like he's griping about a repertory piece, with barely an acknowledgement of the sheer constellation of effort and genius to put together such a complex new work and launch it from opera's grandest stage. I guess he feels compelled to say something smart about the music, but the pettiness surfaces when proportions miss. If I may, I'd suggest Woolfe get a blog instead, where he can whine like Sieglinde, rot at a more appropriate level, while assembling a safe space for fellow DiDonato groupies. Who knows, we may yet join and revel in that trivial hobby.

Note: we shall issue our personal take on these proceedings in a few days, after attending another performance or two.

Opera high

And you thought we would miss this? Jesus yes, we were all there last night to say "hello" and "where the f* you been" to Sieglinde's old friend Renéééééée. In a word, orgasmic. Full details later when we are able to talk beyond hyperbole.

In the meantime, we leave you with this blind item, from none other than our venerable rag, that may explain a few things:

Smoke shops are not the only places that have popped up selling cannabis. State regulators have also cited a tattoo parlor, an opera house and a beauty salon.

Anyone know which beauty salon they're referring to? DMs will be much appreciated.

Callas-lite

But of course we were at this season's opening night at the Met. Sieglinde has been a stalwart of our diva Sondra Radvanovsky since we've heard her as Serving Woman in Elektra in the late 1990s, back in the day when Gabriele Schnaut, in the title role, molested our eardrums with daggers while Deborah Voigt, a hefty Chrysothemis, soothed the pain with cream. (Oh those were the days of yore ...) OK, we jest: you don't care about Serving Women, and neither do we. Anyway, Sondra quietly rose through other minor roles, through Musetta, and then to Luisa Miller, her first serious top bill which we scarcely remember because the opera itself is (don't hate us!) a snoozefest.

Her Leonora in Il Trovatore in 2000 (more than two decades ago!) marked a turn towards stardom. Those performances predate these Diaries so we can't provide blow-by-blow details, but what we remember was a house-filling lachrymose voice, veiled grey if a bit monochromatic, but oozing with mournful distress that was resolutely devastating in those "Ah! Le pene" wails in Act IV. We marvelled at how a thick sound could scale those high notes with bel canto precision; and oh, we were thrilled to have heard, dare we even say, the sonic shadow of La Divina herself.

Next was I Vespri Siciliani in 2004, right around when these Diaries were born. We blogged those performances heavily. After one particular performance in November, 2004, we thus declared:

One isn't being unreasonable to suggest (gasp) Callas in describing the over-all affect of Sondra Radvanovsky's voice; indeed, both voices bear the dark veil of quiet suffering whatever the aria or context. Radvanovsky's instrument has grown a shade darker since her Trovatore Leonoras a couple of years ago, and has become significantly more flexible, but has thankfully lost none of its staggering volume. Last night she used the default emotion intrinsic to her instrument to produce a most heartrending "Arrigo! ah parli ad un core," and with such talent she is assured to be remembered by this generation of fans.
...
Anyway, she's a young soprano with a young career, and the vocal development I have noticed the past couple of years signifies to me that she's headed in the right direction. To be compared to our favorite divas at this point in her life is true testament to her enormous talent and potential. Already she has defied the American curse by nurturing a distinct voice with personality and edge; now in order to succeed in this kind of repertory, she has only to delve deeper into the Latin aspect of her soul: i.e., show emotion beyond the dark veil, and please apply the chest!

What came next were the Don Carlo's in 2005. We cannot tell you why these Diaries were mostly silent about those performances. We surely attended at least a couple of evenings, but are surprised to retrieve only naked passing references to what appeared to be tumultuous evenings. WTF, right? (We do remember that around the same time, Maria Guleghina (oceanliner, skyscraper, continent) was defying physics as Abigaille, so that could have possibly diverted our attention.)

Sondra then went through a spate of Verdi's in the late aughts, which these Diaries somehow skipped. Only when her Tosca's were presented did the Diaries take note, as in this post from January, 2011:

The throbbing, relentlessly lachrymose and sonically gifted soprano of Sondra Radvanovsky enters a new dimension. She probably vaporized many in-house recordings and shattered hidden microphones tonight, with the sheer gigabigness of her top notes and that characteristic, mechanical vibrato. But the good news is that she's finally using some chest tones! Not a lot, not as big, and not consistently, but they were there when it mattered ...

The mid-2010's was a difficult period for Sieglinde so much so that (gasp!) she missed Sondra's historic Three Donizetti Queens entirely. (Sieglinde also stopped blogging around that time.) If we could get a hold of a time machine, this may be one temporal destination. Sieglinde shall speak about these dark years when the time is right. However, neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep her from seeing any Norma, especially one which promises to rearrange the Pantheon. If these Diaries were still active around that time, it would have exploded in excessive worship. Sondra reached a pinnacle, her voice a physical force, a sure contrast to a series of flawed Norma's, beginning in 2001 (Jane Eaglen, Hasmik Papian, Maria Guleghina) after being absent from the repertory for a generation. And we must mention that Joyce DiDonato, as Adalgisa, exceeded all expectations and demonstrated supreme virtuosity despite an unmemorable sound.

Which brings us to this season's Medea. Even if you're not paying attention till now, you can't deny that this stunt automatically invites direct comparison to Callas (the true reason Medea hasn't been performed at the Met till this year). Regardless, our girl can do the role with the kind of pathos and fury that stirs opera queens out of their seats and throw confetti. Maestro Carlo Rizzi knows how to drive an Italian work on overdrive, and he surely maneuvered a vibrant evening of intense melodramatic singing from all the principals, including tenor Matthew Polenzani, a fellow American old-timer at the Met.

Sieglinde was deeply moved, for sure. Yet one question interrupts this predictable storyline--why did we only see the prima? Why didn't we go back for more? What was missing? Was there too much of Callas in this whole endeavor and in the face of Sondra's voice that she must inevitably be discarded as plastic imitation? Where was the delirium? Is Sieglinde's stupor just a sign of old age? Sondra is scheduled to bulldoze New York with Turandot next season. Let's see how those performances lay waste to these trivial, pointless musings.

Sondra Radvanovsky during Il Trovatore curtain calls in 2000.

This Don Carlo can fit in two CDs

Verdi DON CARLO, 03.11.22; c. Rizzi; Thomas, Buratto, Matochkina, Mattei, Groissböck, Relyea.

I’ve gone to many, many evenings at the Met and elsewhere in the past decade (and we’ll get to those as winter approaches), but why not reignite these Diaries with last night’s relentlessly bombastic Don Carlo, featuring Maestro Carlo Rizzi, who doesn’t think this opera should be any longer than a Puccini evening. First question—as the four-act Italian version of Don Carlo is already a dark and gloomy affair without the Fontainebleau preface, do we really need David McVicar to lead us down to another one of his recycled crypts? Meanwhile, the stars of the evening were the boys! Günther Groissböck as Filippo, dashing and unexpectedly sympathetic, and Peter Mattei as Posa, as bright and unblemished a best friend/secret lover as you’ll ever want in your Royal Court. John Relyea’s Il Grande Inquisitore is forever a thrill, his scene with Groissböck a satisfying belch after three pints of Guinness. Russell Thomas as Don Carlo was pushed to the degree you’d want, tortured and anguished till the end. But how about the girls? First time I’m hearing Eleonora Buratto: as Elisabetta, I detected fleeting shades of Barbara Frittoli, but her sound is much too accomplished and studied, therefore faceless. What Anna Netrebko would have done with this thankless role, we New Yorkers may never know. Yulia Matochkina kinda understood the assignment, but, sorry for being that old fart, couldn’t her Eboli be more perverse and worrying? Of course, subbing for Anita Rachvselishvili, so reeking of “golden age”, is one hopeless errand.

The Empress Awakens

How does one reboot a love affair? Time moves on, passions no longer boil so corrosively, accumulated memories temper the heart’s natural inclinations, their surplus pieces gathered and reconsidered, with compassion; the senses practiced, knees and muscle folding discretely into a dormant equilibrium. Yet there is still that low hunger, no longer urgent but deeper, as the days grow shorter and more predictable. Where is this all taking us, and what is left for us to touch? You are at once familiar and indistinguishable: do I know what you will say next, or will there be another kind of revelation that will jolt my accounted bones?

Ten years ago

Perhaps many years from now, I'll look back, as I did last night, and say how wonderful it was to have been at countless Fleming performances because she always made me feel utterly happy and loved, and also reminded me of love. I'd say, at one point she was all I knew, and I've never been more content.

Last full breath before diving into another semester

Listless List

The List is out. Here's how our boys fared:

But the dynamic duo of 19th-century opera, Verdi and Wagner, aimed high. As I already let slip, they both make my list. That a new production of a Verdi opera, like Willy Decker’s spare, boldly reimagined staging of “La Traviata” at the Metropolitan Opera, can provoke such heated passions among audiences is testimony to the enduring richness of Verdi’s works. A production of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle has become the entry card for any opera company that wants to be considered big time. The last 20 minutes of “Die Walküre” may be the most sadly beautiful music ever written.

But who ranks higher? They may be tied as composers but not as people. Though Verdi had an ornery side, he was a decent man, an Italian patriot and the founder of a retirement home for musicians still in operation in Milan. Wagner was an anti-Semitic, egomaniacal jerk who transcended himself in his art. So Verdi is No. 8 and Wagner No. 9.

Mozart was listed, of course, but only at No. 3? The other opera composers who made it are Beethoven and Debussy.  It's actually an amusing read, full of funny apologies and excuses. The exercise of putting together such lists is not unlike choosing a favorite child, if you're too serious about it. But it can also be a "gun-to-your-head" or desert island game, if you're on your second bottle of wine.

I wish a blog like Parterre Box would host a similar challenge to readers, for our very own Top 10 List of Opera's Greatest Composers.  I'm sure it's been done here and there, more times than I can imagine, but to have perhaps the greatest collection of queens bitch it out for days and days would be a true highlight of operablogging in a while.  (Sorry, it can't be hosted here, since (a) I have a readership of about a dozen, and (b) I don't allow comments in the blog.) Mascagni, anyone?

La Travesty

The limitations of her performance were particularly glaring in Act II, when Germont, Alfredo's father, arrived like a death knell to separate her from her last chance at happiness. Here, she was paired with Andrzej Dobber, whose dour, monochromatic baritone emphasized Germont's cruelty and self-righteousness, with no hint of his growing respect for Violetta's integrity and his sympathy for her, and the long duet pitted two equally stiff characters against each other. Ms. Poplavskaya simply flailed against Mr. Dobber's implacability, and this sequence, one of the richest in the opera, missed the intense development that Verdi wrote into both these people. It became part of the production's scheme without persuading us of its emotional truth.

Well said.

My lingering thought now is Holy Crap, I have to see this modern Decker monstrosity every time I go to the Met for Traviata.  It's one of my faves!  How can this happen.  My next thought, somehow comforting, is, well, who will agree to sing this Violetta here anyway.  Only youngish and semi-athletic sopranos can do that riding the couch shit with any credibility.  Seriously, of the Violettas that graced the Zeffirelli extravaganza in the past decade, only Cristina Galladro-Domas, the young Patricia Racette (but no more), Krassimira Stoyanova, maybe Anja Harteros, maybe Hei-Kyung Hong, maybe Mary Dunleavy can do this production to some degree (but will they agree to do it is another question). The list leaves out really good interpreters such as Ruth Ann Swenson, June Anderson, Renee Fleming, and Angela Gheorghiu.  That blows, don't you think?

Breaking news: Verdi and Wagner Make it to History's Most Pompous Top 10 List

The New York Times' Anthony Tommasini argues for their inclusion in his own most exclusive list of "The 10 Greatest Composers of Classical Music", otherwise known as "The Most Predictable Top 10 List Out There, Really".

Real Housewife of UWS

We have something spontaneous (for lunch), something small. Dinner is the big meal. I love to eat, but no way am I going to do a diet; forget it! I just am careful about how much I eat. Sure, I would like to lose a few kilos, but I don’t want to be skinny. You see these skinny, starving women always with the unhappy faces! In my profession, you need the big lungs; my upper body is one or two sizes bigger than my bottom half.

Elsewhere, Anna Netrebko professes her devotion to TJ Maxx, Century 21, Starbucks, "The Tudors", and "popcorn, a Coke, and a movie".  Don't yawn, it's rude.

Traviata Epic Fail

Verdi LA TRAVIATA, 12.01.11; c. Noseda; Poplavskaya, Polenzani, Dobber.

The sets, supposedly new, squeaked and creaked a number of times throughout the evening, which was distracting, to say the least. But what I really minded was the way Willy Decker managed to strip off the human intimacy in key scenes, all for the sake of "interpretation". The disjuncture between Verdi's era-specific story and Decker's dislocated reimagination is jarring. If his Violetta is this modernish hooker and her parties have many transvestites and their couches are from Ikea, then why the hell does the Germont family even care if the son is cavorting quite happily with some Lindsay Lohan? Surely in this imagined modern plane, morality and shame don't bear as much force as in, say, the socially rigid Zeffirelli universe.

Because of this dissonance, Decker's first scene of Act II, which is the opera's breaking heart, where Verdi wrote his most wrenchingly personal music, was a total failure. I do recall that in the traditional Zeffirelli, Renee Fleming, Angela Gheorghiu, Ruth Ann Swenson, and Hei-Kyung Hong (to name a few) managed to induce a melodrama that left me shamelessly misty-eyed. In the new production, Marina Poplavskaya, during this scene, wanders here and there and up and down and left and right, attempting to fill an otherwise big, empty, brightly-lit sterile void. (Paradoxically, the "big" Zeffirelli production was actually cozier and warmer in Act II, Scene I, than this "spare" Decker; the singers in this current run have been inadvertently miniaturized.)

The other problem with "concept" productions is that you end up expecting to be dazzled and surprised at every turn, so that the opera seems engaging only during special effects moments or dynamic staging (like Robert Lepage's undulating Das Rheingold platform spines) but can quickly become staid and dull when things stop moving or changing. Again, Act II's crucial scene with Violetta and Papa Germont was one casualty, the proverbial drying paint of the evening. Runner up was Act III, the other emotionally packed scene, where Violetta again wanders around, but this time in her bodacious camison, obsessed with Doctor Death. (Yawn.)

More things to say about this; perhaps I'll get to them later this week. Also, a few words need to be added regarding Marina Poplavskaya's uneven but ultimately satisfying portayal and Matthew Polenzani's singular success. But the bottom line on the Decker: an annoying disappointment.

Critically short

Scary for other reasons was Sondra Radvanovsky’s first Met Tosca, sung flat and evoking all the tragic grandeur of a Real Housewife of New Jersey.

Funny! (But only one line devoted to the headliner?)

Radvanovsky did seem a bit suburban in her demeanor, but interpretation of interpretations is almost always about personal taste more than reality. What may be gauged a bit more objectively is flatness, and after reviewing one in-house recording from first note to last, I could not sense any consistent flatness in her rendition. (I should be fair to Alagna as well: his top notes weren't terribly flat either; but the way his face tensed up launching up to them was just a tad painful to watch in person.) Alternatively, I may need to take my ears in for a tune-up. (Get it??)

But what has not been mentioned in any review that I've seen thus far is the rare kind of ovation that greeted Radvanovsky, for her exquisite Vissi d'arte and during her ecstatic curtain calls. After many years and hundreds of evenings at the Met, I could sense different degrees of ovations, and believe me, there was something special going on. The evening was buttressed with the kind of sustained energetic applause and bravas from all parts of the house (not just from one or two freaks) that the likes of Deborah Voigt may never get at the Met again. (Heck, even Renee Fleming hasn't gotten it recently.) The only other active soprano that garners the same feverish adulation is Anna Netrebko, but we know that Netrebko's is as much about the back story as the evening's performance. With no-name Radvanovsky, it seemed more a visceral response to what was actually occurring on stage. If this is a "work in progress", then we got ourselves the next major New York supernova.