Soprano Lise Davidsen as Leonora in La Forza del Destino
My current day gig and other commitments have lately left me no time for writing, so I will use this opportunity to comment on three performances from the Met’s 2023-24 Spring Season.
In March, I saw the Met’s new production of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, as set in a “contemporary city” which gave the impression of military dictatorship somewhere in South America. In a standard setting, the plot of Forza can come off as rather tortured to the point of tediousness with the various impersonations and disguises set against a deeply religious backdrop of the type that can only be found in post-inquisition Spain. While this update was not without some theatrically viable connections to the already challenged plot, the religious aspects of the story (monks, hermits and pilgrimages) did not translate as well into a modern police state.
Apart from adoring the Act IV duet between Alvaro and Carlo, I really came to this see this opera as part of my own sort of pilgrimage, that is, following closely the career and development of soprano Lise Davidsen. As I noted in my March 2022 review of Ariadne auf Naxos, Davidsen is probably the most exciting new voice in a decade at the Met and has quickly established herself, for my money, as the undisputed prima donna of the company. Her voice being of the jugend hochdramtischer soprano type, I was very curious to hear how she might handle the sweeping lyricism required in a typical Verdi heroine such as Leonora. But handle she did, and with an impressive ease and directness rarely heard. Davidsen is absolutely in command of her instrument which spans a palette of sound from silvery silken to a full, brilliant and piercing metallic. The challenge is that while the role of Leonora lies squarely in the spinto repertoire, Davidsen is a young dramatic soprano whose voice does not immediately lend itself to the traditional expectations of this role. Her lower register speaks with such a natural fullness that Davidsen rarely needs to call on her chest voice in this role, like many spintos. But it is the use of chest voice that marks the urgency and color we have come to expect in our Leonoras. On the other end, her flexibility in her upper range, while impressive, lacks some of the more nuanced fluidity of a typical Italianate voice. Still, listening to Davidsen easily sail through Madre, pietosa, I had the sense she was always holding back, almost respectfully, in this bel canto style that she is seemingly well aware will only enhance the growth and longevity of her voice destined for much bigger things. The scope of her voice was more apparent and satisfying in Pace, pace, mio Dio where her substantial sound was unleashed on house while still managing to spin long, silken lines in the final death scene.
Brian Jagde and Igor Golovatenko were magnificent in the portrayals of Don Alvaro and Don Carlo, the Act IV duet proving to be utterly worth the wait. Special mention to Met veteran Partick Carfizzi who slithery Melitone rounded out the luxury voice casting in an otherwise awkward new production.
The weekend before last was an all-Puccini affair with La Rondine on Friday and a matinee of Turandot on Saturday. I’ll start with the bad news. As much as it pains me to say, it may be time to retire the Zefirelli production of Turandot, magnificent though it is. It has served its purpose over the years but is showing signs of its age (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/arts/music/met-opera-turandot-technical-problem.html). The production also seems to have devolved into a cycle of uninspired casting. Gone are the days when the title role was reserved for only the largest and most unique voices sufficient to fill the house in this devilishly challenging title role. I am thinking of a voice like Eva Marton who sang the role on my first trip to Met in 1985 in this same production. Though I have seen some exciting Turandots since then, none have come close the wall of sound that was Marton. Instead, we have seen silly decisions of casting that have included the nonsense casting of Anna Netrebko who had no business singing this role, in any house, let alone the Met. Mercifully, she has been banned from the Met and the 15-year experiment of moving a mid-weight, lyric soprano into the heaviest dramatic roles before our very eyes has gone with her.
Last season, I was surprised to hear that Christine Goerke would take on the title role. Considered to be a leading House dramatic soprano, I have known her voice to be one of substantial weight but she has never had the vibrant, metallic thrust in her highest ranges called for in some of the roles she is assigned. This has led to a string of disappointments in such roles as Elektra and Brünnhilde in years past. Still, last season, I was pleasantly surprised as Goerke managed to somehow find the resources to portray a convincing Turandot though it appeared she was summoning every ounce of voice she could muster–an approach, I thought, might have future negative consequences. I was right. This year, Goerke was wholly unconvincing in the role. The voice was, at the most crucial times, uneven, pitchy and noticeably forced. In questa reggia was workmanlike but little more with short, cut-off phrases and high notes pressed into service. Straniero, ascolta! was an entirely different matter as this scene falls directly into her most developed range. Here, Goerke demonstrated the full ferocity of her sumptuous instrument. But the Figlio del ceilo! scene once again put on full display why this role is out of her reach as she twisted and distorted the excruciatingly beautiful, rising lines of scene, her first ascent to high C almost inaudible where the second was fully covered by the soprano section of the Met Chorus. In my opinion, Goerke needs to come to terms that she is not a hochdramtischer soprano and continue in those many roles that nevertheless would be well-served by a voice of her size such as Ariadne, Santuzza, Kundry, Ortrud and Cassandre.
Christina Goerke and Roberto Algana in Turandot
Joining her was the veteran tenor Roberto Alagna who lately appears in only the largest, dramatic tenor Italian roles such as Radames, Canio and, here, as Calaf. Don’t get me wrong. I have a great respect for Alagna’s decades of solid singing and careful preservation of his voice which itself is wonder given his smallish build and stature. That said, he is no Radames and certainly no Calaf–and certainly not at the Met. He never was. Impressive as Nessun dorma was, the total emission of sound was about half that of, for example, tenor Yonghoon Lee who sang Calaf a few years back. Combining his modest sound with Goerke’s technical issues made for an evening of anti-climatic duet singing, especially in Act III. But this was not the full extent of this underwhelming performance. The roles of Ping, Pang and Pong, so crucial to this opera, were cast with three recent graduates of the Lindemann Young Artist Program. In their various solo lines, each of them were difficult to hear and, at times (including as a group and especially while sining over any significant orchestration), they were almost entirely inaudible. I literally had to bend forward to sense any sliver of satisfying feedback from these three. But I do not blame them, mostly. I do blame the Met casting team for, as they have done many times before, thrusting young artists into roles they not ready for in this most unforgiving house.
The only redeeming part of this production was Liu of Gabriella Reyes and the Timur of Peixin Chen. These two stole the show in every scene they appeared. Reyes, also a recent Lindemann Young Artist Program winner, brought a solid lyric soprano with ample grounding and spin making her a natural, if still developing, Liu. Signore, ascolta! was a joy as Reyes evenly paced the aria from tender plea to a desperate cry, all with a round and balanced sound to a final and piercing Bb. Chen was rock solid as Timur and his final farewell in the Death of Liu scene was so tender and convincing there was hardly a dry eye in house. I found the conducting of Oksana Lyniv often dry and mechanical with ensembles, such as Non, piangere, Liu, plodding and non-directional causing singers to struggle within the texture. The Met Chorus was astounding, as always. I think I have seen my last performance of this production. Let’s start imagining a new production of Turandot at the Met for this generation. To the Zefirelli production: thanks for the memories!
The weekend was rounded out with a most lavish and entirely satisfying production of La Rondine. Leading the cast was soprano Angel Blue as Magda and tenor Jonathan Tetelman as Ruggero. Each brought their own strengths to their respective roles: Tetelman with a lean but piercing voice that easily traversed Ruggero’s soaring passages and Blue with her honest and smooth mid-weight lyric soprano that lent a certain grounding and elegance to Magda’s fickle character. While Blue’s Chi il bel sogno and Ora dolci e divine were not among the most ravishing I have heard, she nevertheless managed these and the entire role with grace and solid technique. The pair was supported by a lovely cast including the vivacious and exacting Lisette of soprano soubrette Emily Pogorelc, the bright and witty Prunier of tenor Bekhzod Davronov and stalwart and commanding Rambaldo of bass-baritone Alfred Walker.
Soprano Angel Blue leading cast of La Rondine
Among Puccini’s lesser performed works, the opera is nevertheless the very model of the composer’s extravagant gift for melody. Indeed, even the most mundane of action or text is elevated to a certain elegance and luminosity against the backdrop of Puccini’s caressing, delicate and often soaring melodic lines. Dramaturgic concerns aside, the sum effect is to find oneself, for just under three hours, elevated into another world where time stops and melody is king, and all the wearisome and tedious concerns of the world seem to slip away. Combine this with the wonderful cast, the Met’s ravishing scenes of Paris and the Riviera of the 1920s and the superb support of the Met Chorus and Orchestra, and it was, as my opera partner that evening said, “just what I needed to see tonight.”
Opera Frankly 