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.