Tommasini Decoded

LEGEND
WTAW: What Tony actually wrote in his NYT review.
WTATS: What Tony appears to say.
WTRM: What Tony really meant.


WTAW: "But since Ms. O'Flynn performed without having had a stage rehearsal, it would be premature to assess the production of the Belgian director Guy Joosten and his creative team, all in their Met debuts."
WTATS: "This is my official 'out', gimme a break, people."
WTRM: "Thank Milanov I don't have to say how utterly crappy that was. But shit, does this mean I have to go back to see it again? Oh crap. Bummer."


WTAW: "By advance reports, Mr. Joosten had worked exhaustively with Ms. Dessay on her portrayal. The tenor Ramón Vargas, who sang Roméo, is a vibrant singer but a stiff actor. He often seemed ill at ease here ..."
WTATS: "Joosten, typical opera queen, ignores tenor. Poor Vargas: looked grotesque in those tights, but boy was he stiff!"
WTRM: "F*, can't figure out a way to insert 'strapping' here ('stiff' was good though). But there's hope yet ... because that Mercutio looks fine ... hmmmm ..."


WTAW: "Still, most aspects of the production are describable."
WTATS: "Some aspects of the production are just indescribable."
WTRM: "Would be fun to describe indescribable aspects, but I'm boring, so forget it."


WTAW: "(They) have given Gounod's operatic telling of Shakespeare's tragedy a historically appropriate Renaissance Italian look, though with surreal touches. The set evokes Renaissance interiors lined with elaborate wood inlay, like the studiolo from the ducal palace in Gubbio, which can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum."
WTATS: "Skip this crap, go straight to the Gubbio studiolo at the Met Museum, have Freni-Kraus in your iPod: cheaper ticket and much, much more nuance."
WTRM: "Really, it felt surreal to be touched during the opera by the hot Italian duke (my date!! LOL) showing elaborate wood."


WTAW: "Above the stage hangs an armillary sphere, a complex of orbs and globes used to teach astronomy in Renaissance Italy. Indeed, the production makes explicit the celestial metaphors that gush from the mouths of the impulsive young lovers."
WTATS: "Explicit metaphors gush big time."
WTRM: "Hope no one's yet noticed that I'm halfway through this review and all I've done so far is to call this production describable."


WTAW: "As they sing of their ecstasy, the walls of the set part to reveal milky firmaments and galaxies."
WTATS: "Big bang sex scene shook the walls and was so milky and so gooey. Meanwhile, nix that Gubbio studiolo reference; try the Big Dipper and some Uranus instead."
WTRM: "Production team was on ecstasy."


WTAW: "The celestial imagery culminates in the scene in which the secretly married young couple share their one night of wedded bliss. Against a starry expanse, Juliette's bed hovers in the air. As breezes waft through the silken white sheets that hang from its sides, the lovers rustle in each other's arms. The image produced applause and ah's from the audience."
WTATS: "Note: this is the only thing that half-worked all evening. Savor it."
WTRM: "Meanwhile, how'd they manage to float that bed????? (Which reminds me, my sling's still in the shop, been two long weeks already, I should probably give them a call.)"


WTAW: "In its Busby Berkeley-esque way, it was quite a sight, though you worried as the singers performed a long, difficult duet confined to a small bed suspended from wires."
WTATS: "Quite a sight, oh it was quite a sight; quite a production indeed!"
WTRM: "Singing while suspended: not recommended (I tried once, strap broke, that's why it's in the shop, really blows). Meanwhile, let's see how many idiots google 'Busby Berkeley' today, haha."


WTAW: "Still, it would be unfair to judge the impact of this and other long-rehearsed staging effects until Ms. Dessay returns."
WTATS: "In case you forgot."
WTRM: "Oh they'll all be f*ed bigtime if Dessay doesn't do an Isolde-cum-Tosca-cum-Lulu on Thursday."


WTAW: "Actually, Ms. O'Flynn seemed more comfortable than Mr. Vargas, who looked rattled."
WTATS: "Vargas was shorter than O'Flynn."
WTRM: "The tights! The hideous tights!"


WTAW: "The French baritone Stéphane Degout, in his Met debut, brings a hardy voice and a strapping physique to Mercutio."
WTATS: "Aha! Strapping!"
WTRM: "Aha! Strap him!"


WTAW: "The conductor Bertrand de Billy elicits an incisive yet elegant account of Gounod's richest and most sophisticated score from the orchestra and chorus."
WTATS: "If he were any more competent, his name would be in the second instead of the penultimate paragraph."
WTRM: "And if he were Jimmy Levine, he'd be the lead."


WTAW: "Ms. Dessay is scheduled to sing the second performance, tomorrow night."
WTATS: "We were told."
WTRM: "And now that Ms. O'Flynn has gotten her one stage rehearsal, that excuse will not fly tomorrow. Now let's see ... who else we can blame ..."

Sieglinde's One Today

Star-Crossed New Production

Gounod ROMEO ET JULIETTE, Met 14.11.2005; c. de Billy; O'Flynn, Vargas, Degout, Sigmundsson, DiDonato, Pittas.

[UPDATED]

Sieglinde has attended about 15 Met operas (give or take) so far this season. This new production premiere of Roméo is easily her worst evening. Sieglinde has seen many new Met productions in recent years, including the Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini from a couple of seasons ago (a frightening event). This new production of Roméo is easily the worst she's seen. Set design went nowhere; voices were misplaced; the conductor (a Frenchman!) didn't inspire: the entire evening alternated between insecure and listless; this Gounod turned out so amorphous it was like watching a Greyhound bus trip unfold. It seemed that all the bright ideas of the production/design team were spent on the spinning stage, a constellation diagram of sorts: and once that gigantic mechanism was set, everything else was patched in to form the rest of the so-called "scenes." Truly, the entire evening felt like a mediocre patch-up job. On any other day, the singing would have been OK, except that this was meant to be a special event. Maureen O'Flynn was understandably cautious thoughout the evening; her voice, a Judith Blegen clone, isn't what I remember it to be: there is now an unpleasant quiver stitched into its backbone, and her top notes are no longer as crisp. The exact same thing can be said of Ramon Vargas (well, except for the Judith Blegen comparison): he may have been a bit under the weather as well, for he has never sounded this "small" or inelegant in the lyric realm: top notes were forced and pianos seemed to cause actual physical pain. Vargas isn't the most dashing figure in the roster, this is obvious: now why did they insist on clothing him with those purple blue tights: in those tights, with his limited stature, and on such an open, cavernous set, he looked like a sorry midget: and how can one appreciate that kind of a Romeo. Yes, that spacious set design, empty of coherent ideas, sometimes left characters too "naked" for comfort. Then, there's Bertrand de Billy (is he really French?), who had little sense of drama: I mean, Gounod delivers high romanticism on a silver platter, so I imagine one could at least sleepwalk through the score and come out with the likes of the Zeffirelli film. But for one reason or another, nothing gelled: Acts IV and V, usually devastating in poignancy, went by without a "tear." The house felt it: I've never heard a more tepid curtain call of a production opening than this: there were a couple of boos for the production/design team, and I would have joined in, except that I was too preoccupied with the hard question of how they can manage to strip the Love off this vivid as a rose garden of a score. By they, I mean everyone involved (except a number of minor singing parts, which I'm too depressed to list here). I doubt that Natalie Dessay can rescue this thing.

[Pictured above is Dean Lois Kirschenbaum, checking out the evening's poster, and wondering why she wasn't consulted about the last-minute cast change.]

UPDATE: Steve Smith gives a more generous account of Maureen O'Flynn's performance, while the Wellsungs (now did you boys think that'd become your blognick?) J & A give Ramon Vargas a pass. After a good night's sleep, I too am inclined to forgive, especially under the circumstances. Specifically, in light of the frightening production the singers have been asked to animate. Steve says it was an "ultimately static affair that left me scratching my head pondering relations to Copernicus, Kepler, MC Escher and Swatch watches." Jonathan characterizes it as "sort of like a Griffin and Sabine book meets a Nova episode meets a bad dream of Galileo's," and Alex calls it precisely as a "kind of shallow compromise emerging again from the tension between not wanting to do another straight-up production while being unwilling to do too something too far out." Oh what a waste of space, indeed.

Maureen O'Flynn

Months ago, upon hearing that Natalie Dessay had agreed to sing Juliette at the Met this season, Sieglinde wondered who her cover would be. Sieglinde is psychic. She's also less depressed by today's breaking news than you'd expect. Maureen O'Flynn, the new Juliette in this evening's new Met production premiere, is not an entirely unknown quantity to Sieglinde. She's seen her twice at the Met in recent years: a Gilda and a Violetta, and both were more than competent performances. She displayed a gorgeous light lyric soprano, clear and seamless in the upper registers, and able to fill the Met cavern effortlessly. And whereas recent Violettas and Gildas have been avoiding the optional high E-flat to end their respective signature arias, O'Flynn faced both challenges without any trepidation, and spun them with a breathtaking yellow gold hue. I remember asking myself why she wasn't a bigger star than she was. Now is her chance to sparkle.