MET: Tosca - Second (and good) attempt to produce Puccini thriller this season - Patricia Racette. c: Fabio Luisi (new Met PGC) - 24.4.10

The Met in one season has almost brought us a second new production of Puccini’s Tosca, though less identifiable than the previous. It still uses the same quasi-abstract sets by Richard Peduzzi (of Chereau Bayreuth Ring fame) employed for the Luc Bondy production last fall. Seeing the same sets is not reassuring. You would think from reading other press that this Tosca might be resurrected from the dead; one can indeed be quite sure it no longer belongs to Luc Bondy. With cast that has helped make this near-end-of-season revival happen, Puccini’s Tosca has though in fact returned to life.

One plan floated early on after first run this season of Puccini’s Tosca was for the Met to offer their patrons next season choice of both the just recently taken down grandiose Zeffirelli production and new Luc Bondy production. This was quite obviously not going to work, so how about for most of the new set designs to stay up, change back most but not quite all the stage direction to traditional and let everybody do the best they can, with committee (Gina Lapinski, Paula Williams, et al) to monitor things from there? From a conceptual point of view, it had to have made matters confusing, but given what audiences are like these days, who was watching? A good time was had by all, so we should rest content with that.

I still lack complete answers to dilemma lying beneath the surface of operations here, except to generically observe that it resembles the inmates having been left to run the asylum. Fortunately the Met has picked handful of competent inmates this go at it; in this sense, the Met has become very lucky. So much is specific to time, place, event and metaphor, with Puccini’s Tosca. It is at best tricky to come up with something innovative that really can work. One however has only to watch the Netherlands Opera dvd – also starring Bryn Terfel as Scarpia – to find it. There is also a very effective Madrid dvd (starring Daniela Dessi and Ruggiero Raimondi, produced by Nuria Espert), only mostly traditional by impetus - Scarpia cleric-inquisitor therein as much as police chief.

In quest to unearth the soul of Luc Bondy’s production of Tosca, a good place to turn is review posted at www.concerto.net. After reading off this link, one could surmise Bondy has arrived at it from world of the comic strip; mention is made of how effectively Bondy has worked for the lyric theater already. There is the Royal Opera Salome (also starring Terfel opposite Maliftano, just as for the Netherlands Tosca), but also a Don Carlo the Met would have been wise to pick up - most preferably over what they did instead.

So, given the character of last fall’s staging, how about having had Luc Bondy, if this was indeed what he had in mind, taking his concept all the way? Oddly enough, there are elements of his production that almost copy what some of us have seen elsewhere. Floria Tosca being on tough end of relationship with Cavaradossi is hardly new but hard to accept to come up with exaggeratedly interpreting their Act One scene together this way. She should be embroiled in petty matters mixed with her own religiosity with him putting his life on the line for friend of his and visionary political cause. This can sometimes happen even unwittingly in comparison of voice type, between the two leads. It did so too decisively in Houston’s1991 revival of Firenze production that had starred Jo Barstow - here placing a very weak, Russian tenor opposite Eva Marton. It surprised me how effective Jonathan Miller’s production is of Fanciulla del West (La Scala), dating from same year as Tosca here, once I watched it much later on dvd.

Playing Scarpia as smarmy demon, kind of one not to be so overtly menacing, as to be nipping at Tosca’s heels, was not new either. The Lehnhoff from Amsterdam even toys with this risk with the rather serpentine costume it handed Bryn Terfel. Ira Siff demeaned last Saturday Terfel uselessly bringing on stage with him a cat in Amsterdam to start Act Two. Does anybody remember how funny Ruggiero Raimondi’s first interpretation of Scarpia was for Herbert von Karajan? He even puts it down himself in the interview, with nudge and wink enough, on the Madrid dvd on which he is so very effective. The Karajan/Raimondi Scarpia definitely contributes to this Tosca being what I rate best ‘party cd’ of a Puccini opera for two generations. Neither is it new to ironically play Mario as acting completely unaware of possibility there could be anything wrong with Tosca’s news to him of their imminent freedom, life together as she imagines it, in Act Three.

Let us then throw in Met staff and attendant panel of expert witnesses. I speculate here – with their mysteriously to nefariously achieved poll data as to what audience reaction might be to an avant-garde, progressive or even simply irreverent take on Puccini’s Tosca. Luc Bondy’s Opera News interview last October was muted in tone to extent of appearing muzzled; it told us nothing. Other recent new productions at the Met, Jurgen Flimm’s Salome (2004) included, have looked confused enough gesturally to also possibly have been arrived at by committee. With new game plan, according to what I heard in nuance Saturday – much but not completely different than before – path of least resistance is to review again mostly a traditional production replacing Zeffirelli's.

Patricia Racette gave us the major up-stage of the season, suddenly to take Karita Mattila's place after making her role debut as Tosca in Houston last January. Mattila still has the greater amplitude, Racette’s voice is still one size too small, but almost on nuance alone Racette suggested toppling who now still might rank higher as Tosca – as though possible with a feather-weight. Those passages in which Racette passionately threw her all into it – though at expense of vocal capital - made for exciting theater.

Racette made Tosca unequivocal in her love for Mario, which in context of this production, made forgivable some unsteadiness around the break (remindful of her 1998 Antonia at the Met) and several unsupported high notes. She prudently let things grow only so agitated at Cavaradossi early on – to be more solicitous of his love than anything else. It took a short while for Racette to match Jonas Kaufmann in tone quality, but find a meeting place that way, they eventually did. With Scarpia, her sorrow for Cavaradossi’s supposed infidelity was heartfelt but defiance toward situation slightly weak.

Racette’s acting poise caved somewhat for first half of Act Two. A few lines, right into resuming conversation with Scarpia attempting to re-ignite her suspicions, still came off right. She then tended to coast through the interrogation scene, thus making something coy out of Tosca’s reactions. Coyness was still an issue through early phase of being finally alone on stage with Scarpia. It shows still a little inexperience, but also insipid type of acting to be putting on to Scarpia as just barely hiding much toughness underneath – i.e. the contriving or generic putting on of ravaged female of sorts,. Due to lack on Kaufmann’s part, all the way through rest of the time he was active in Act Two, neither he nor Racette made it seem either character was near end of his or her tether. This and all of the above was due in part both to priority in saving voice for Racette, plus some inroads original stage directions still made into some of their interaction.. “Voglio vederlo” still came off too tough, - but vis-à-vis Mattila, Racette made purposeful show of how to get lines off exactly right during critical later decision-making with Scarpia,

After stormy Act Two trio, Racette hardly looked the inexperienced diva anymore. “Vissi d’arte” had the right catch in the throat to indicate desperation. It was here that Racette’s voice, while still lyrical, beautifully filled out with fine color what she was singing – with fervor, secure line, femininity and poise, hardly compromised by minor pitch problems at very end. Acting, in the traditional sense was just about perfectly ideal for the rest of Act Two, with fine command of low notes too. Racette’s hyperventilating made having her remain on stage until very end of Act Two very effective.

Just as in ‘Vissi d’arte’, in vividly suggesting involvement and also great vulnerability concerning latest news for Cavaradossi, Racette kept voice lyrical and beautifully focused. The power she needed for solo acuti and several matching Kaufmann was then reassured for the asking. A little confusion showed with directed insipid intrusion of Tosca’s assurance of Mario being gone before asking him to get up (after being shot), but with adrenaline pumping, Racette capped off “Ah Scarpia, avanti a Dio” with a blazing high B-Flat all anyone could have given it; The gentle, solicitous ardor earlier for badly injured doomed Cavaradossi ideally said all the rest.

Jonas Kaufmann replaced the vocally smoother Marcelo Alvarez - all suavity before having come at too heavy a cost to the character of Mario Cavaradossi, at least under anything resembling conventional circumstances. Alvarez did not quite take things to tasteless extent of Pavarotti, but proved that ‘lucky Luciano’ means of going about it had not yet met the death it has richly deserved since Pavarotti himself passed away. Kaufmann, still following some post-modernist impetus from Luc Bondy, sounded confused occasionally – i.e. weakness in staring down Scarpia during Act Two and then well before his ringing Vittoria’s sounding slightly stronger, healthier than he should right after being carried back on from behind stage. He tailored his dark, baritonal timbre, just at first close to being able to mistake for that of Hans Hopf, to suit Puccini’s music well.

Kaufmann quickly recovered heroic stance for “Qual occhio al mondo” - after making too much light of banter with Tosca right before - yet with one G-Flat slightly caught in the throat. He started both “E lucevan’ and ‘O dolci mani’ completely mezza voce, brought, though affected, t a lieder artist’s intensity to the words and to moulding a legato enriched by real pathos. High notes, bolstered by fine temperament in characterizing the accompanying action, had fine ring and body to them. For both such vocal splendor and restoring so much definition to Cavaradossi, Kaufmann accomplished much.

Bryn Terfel brought experience as Scarpia elsewhere to bear in his depicting here the sadistic police chief. His mastery of acting Scarpia’s manipulation in doing business with Tosca, Cavaradossi, his officers proved complete – such perfect calibration numerous times of how to threaten, pull back, accommodate, etc. This was so, as long as Terfel did not concede to a few silly ideas that lingered on and to which he did cave several times – i.e. the oily demon interpretation that Gagnidze used as his model last fall. It is odd to hear Terfel attempt such lightly incisive stuff, since Terfel has so often naturally been inclined to go for so much the opposite. Terfel is good at affecting the Latin machismo and romantic ardor for Scarpia, much as Tito Gobbi had down complete Terfel is not yet quite the complete natural at this. Some hoarseness on several top notes during Act Two betrayed too some signs of aging.

This is however still an important accomplishment. Terfel’s voice is still in handsome shape, and he made himself clearly heard over so much bombast, to effectively close the Te Deum. He was prudent in gradually building up the grand line for his part in the Te Deum, while leaving it palpable the frustration and impatience that Scarpia suffers all the way through opening scene of Act Two. Whores on stage with Terfel most definitely sounded much more out of place than they did with Gagnidze.

Improved supporting cast was again led by David Pittsinger (Angelotti). His Emile LeBecque credentials should soon qualify Pittsinger for Michele in the Met Il Tabarro, given what ‘visually (non-)monotonous’ insights Jack O’Brien provided us. John Del Carlo replaced Paul Plishka as the Sacristan. He wisely opted for playing much of this straight, while lending his sound a little crustiness - also, exaggerated, going over the top on ‘Fuori, Satana, fuori.’ He elicited very well the attitude in face of Scarpia of just insipidly cooperating best he can, without responsible thought at all of what consequences. Eduardo Valdes, with it fine to keep intact the ironic attitude of ‘another day at the office’ with Scarpia, was definite improvement over a wheedling Joel Sorensen. Richard Bernstein was the dignified Jailer, Jeffrey Wells a good Sciarrone - and once more Jonathan Makepeace the wistful, very articulate Shepherd.

For attempting to do Tosca intent on turning the meaning of it on its head, James Levine’s and Joseph Colaneri’s tempos last fall were certainly too slow, flaccid overall. .The only way either one saw Tosca as being detached in the least was to make, late Bertolucci style, a picture postcard out of it all. Such a quality was instead a tempered virtue of Fabio Luisi’s leadership, as Luisi also proved a guiding light (back to Puccini) for his singers dramatically as well. His was the much better line in which the story could find context - with which to accentuate its drama, frisson, and also pathos. The only place he allowed too much slack was during the interrogation scene; brief trio to follow came off too careful by half. By time for ‘Vissi d’arte and Spoletta’s entrance to happen, all returned to being tight. With warm resonance evoking Rome at different times of day, the Met orchestra has not sounded better this year than on this occasion.

What made for a veritably Ozzie-and-Harriet level Meg and Ira show was for the emcees to affect that most (conscientiously not all) of the Luc Bondy staging was intact, when anyone who has heard Tosca even at most ten times could hear this second cast often giving us very different information indeed. Did, contrary to Tommasini in the Times, the freeze frame for Tosca’s leap get restored, just so Ira Saturday would not see Racette, late-career-Olivero-style, merely walk off at the very end?

If Luc Bondy’s take on Puccini’s Tosca was entirely indeed of the polo, ironic variety, perhaps the Met could have last fall allowed him unfettered access to what were his genuine preferences. Cavaradossi might then laugh back at Scarpia during interrogation and Tosca gasp ‘Ohime’ - and later give Scarpia a peck on the cheek right after her ‘Muori’s.’ Scarpia, while momentarily sputtering back to life, might then usurp Tosca with ‘Avanti a me …’ … or perhaps an ‘Avanti a lei' …

MET: A special helping of broken chinoiserie - Hui He in slipshod re-run of Verdi's Aida 03.04.10 An aside on PBS re-airing of fall Turandot.

It is with the second heaviest Verdi role with which Hui He of Xi’an, China, graduate of Shanghai Conservatory made her Met and Met broadcast debut. She got heard as Tosca in a concert (semi-staged) performance, broadcast with the New York Philharmonic, approximately a year ago, Lorin Maazel conducting.

The part of Aida is versatile in its demands - elusive this way. Hui He made this much clear. It was just partly a case of nerves that obstructed her being able to start well lyrically, for which she placed back too far - to be careful. It thus made for cloudy tone production from her entrance on stage through end of trio with Amneris and Radames. She gained slightly more confidence for the large ensemble and opening of ‘Ritorna, vincitor’ to follow; her tone better opened out and more of a character began to emerge. Persistent pitch problems then began to compromise line; she lacked quite the control to scale voice down where, such as to start “L’inana parola’, the line is marked pianissimo.

There is attractive color here, for instance a smoky colored lower register, but pitch problems at the break and above killed her first go at ‘Numi, pieta’, that fortunately she repeated much better to end Act Two, Scene One. Gentle imploring of Amneris for news of Radames conveyed fine intimacy as same music taken more slowly during ‘Ritorna vincitor’ had in her previous scene. She then however opted for thickening her sound a little much, making intonation suffer once more, this time for her well felt despondent entreaties for mercy to a threatening rival ('Ah! pieta ti prenda').

‘O patria mia’, starting off the Nile Scene, revealed the effect of some wear and tear of singing Aida on essentially a lyric instrument. The right lyrical impetus was present, and feeling for emotions of the character, but for sake of maintaining control through some of the long cantilena in this aria, tone began to turn whitish under pressure and the high C just about misfired completely. Hui He then managed to quickly regain poise for by and large a quite successful Nile duet with Amonasro, with especially some fully spun out lines to close it, that she then made quite affecting. Through ‘Pur ti riveggo’ with Radames, she also revealed well toughness of the slave girl, alongside the vulnerability. Intonation again became for a few phrases very hit-and-miss for Hui He as the second big duet to include her required so much scaling down of the voice. Most revealing of having succumbed to effect of having had run across some questionable training was the reach-from-behind approach to ‘O, terra, addio’ which broke apart the line and again killed intonation, whereas she had started the Tomb Scene well.

Slight glibness apart, including through ‘L’inno nostro di morte’ in this final scene, a real character as Aida started to emerge, in such quasi-heroic attempt at it, but with so much faulty technique to just simply got excessively in the way. Not encumbered by such heavy demands, here is a lovely instrument, but, one would hope, not one to be quickly ruined soon by plethora of Tosca’s, Aidas, Amelia’s, etc. It would be good to report here that, from veterans of Met and other big house Aida’s, there might be some example for Hui He to follow Saturday. However, all to encounter here were only faint to mediocre reminders of what Aida, singing it, is about.

Salvatore Licitra was the Radames, appearing all eager, naïve, ambitious, guileless, stupid as any Radames should for ‘Se guerrier io fossi.’ All this was fine and well, just as long as Lictira did not have to reach much for the break or anything above it. What hint of anything like heroism that Radames should convey, such as from for instance a Bergonzi, fell seriously by the wayside. Licitra did manage to plan here and conserve energy better than he did last year in Munich with Gatti, singing Radames again, but still several high notes emerged as raw, even here. Clipping of ‘Nel fiero anelito’, inelegant lunging for long sustained F’s in Celesta Aida’ and poutish behavior for cabaletta to the Nile scene duet ultimately contributed to one anti-heroic Radames indeed.

In fact, one would have hoped that the priests, others in charge, once betrayal of the Egyptian forces has occurred, might have paused to consider how perhaps little of a factor Radames might have been in securing victory for which he has just been lauded. Once having done so, it might have been easy to release Radames as unworthy to the cause from the get-go to the Ethiopians to join his Aida in smelling i freschi valli of new jungle home down south. We could have then had a happy ending and no Act Four.

Dolora Zajick, for what seems the umpteen hundredth time - wear and tear on her voice to show for it - was the Amneris. She joined Licitra in giving, even solidifying well the following impression of lets say ninety minutes before curtain, loud stretch and yawn, ‘time to get derriere down to Lincoln Center, put on the Egyptian, and give it all once more what they came for..’ In other words, for the most part, other than to phone Amneris in, the cause was lost. ‘Hmm - how shall we nuance ‘Ah, vieni’ today? Let’s perhaps place each succeeding one even still a little further back from previous one this time.’ How imaginative! What extra gilding Zajick gave them did however succeed in derailing intonation. Zajick comfortably coasted through the ‘Trema, vil schiava’s’ of Act Two, Scene One, then after nice pause for extra half a second from Armiliato, indulged us of her chest voice on ‘Del tuo destino’, that starts and remains comfortably lower.

Marco Armiliato gave Zajick a fairly breezy tempo for cabaletta in the Judgment scene, instead of abetting her clipping it, such as happened earlier here in Houston. The forza for it still got compromised quite a bit. For arioso to precede trial of Radames, Zajick varied between good garden variety verismo and giving the princess’s special voicing of desperation for hope a few shimmers of real insight. There is still indeed an Amneris here, even quite the voice for it, though with chest register more separate from the rest than before, and one looking as though en route to shadow of her former glorious self.

Carlo Colombara made the lyrically achieved Ramfis, achieving proper gravitas and menace for some pages - temple scene with Radames for instance - and compromised, reach-from-above intonation for the rest of it. The profile for what once has been a very fine voice for the part is still there, but some edges now begin to show. Invocations of Radames’s name eventually went completely sharp. Stefan Kocan played the somewhat nasal, Slavic toned King of Egypt quite firmly, but also with minor intonation problems.

Carlo Guelfi energetically fletcherized a bit to put forth a fully rounded Amonasro across the footlights. Other than for several key lines, for instance at the end of the Nile duet with Aida, top notes were unsteady and sense of legato patchy at best. Clearly what continues mostly a character-baritone profile of the embattled and enslaved Ethiopian king emerged here. My expectations for Guelfi were lowest of all, but in context of this cast, he hardly did poorly at all. All three lowest male voices in this cast sounded best in negotiating exchange of recitative toward end of the Triumphal Scene, following Guelfi’s unwritten doubling of Hui He on all instead of part of her long second phrase to repeat what Amonasro just had in full to himself for ‘Ma, tu Re.’ He sounded, non legato, two dynamic levels louder than she did.

More heroic sounding than anybody else in the cast was the Messenger of Diego Torres, perhaps the one unqualified success here. Could he have been a double for Licitra? What could have things been like, had he been able to fill in? The Priestess (Elisabeth DeShong) however was a case, all the way around, of blatant disregard. Nobody, from the podium to backstage showed any evidence of care for how the music is marked, in terms of dynamics, balances, placement, or anything else. DeShong blasted her way through this at an unyielding fortissimo – not making enviable at all where the new Chinese soprano may have stood within grand scheme of things.

After cancellation of Paolo Cargnani just slightly within one week of this run, came on Marco Armiliato to conduct this instead. Heavily misplaced accents in segue off the Judgment Scene duet for one revealed that, for Armiliato, there was nothing other than perhaps cosmetic that needed fixing since Gatti, the far more glorified (and more willful) routiniere who conducted this last fall.

The affectation, mannerisms with Armliato up there in Gatti’s place was at times exactly the same, as I have heard in a Munich Aida and more painfully the La Scala Don Carlo. The Met chorus most often sounded thin and unfocused. Strings were a bit ragged, even for prelude to Act One and mezzo-forte for what should be the magical opening of the Nile scene. Many phrase endings were loud and crude, often to a truly unwarranted extent, i.e. toward end of ‘Ma, tu Re’ during the Triumphal Scene for stretto right before closing phrase. This was shouted to extent that brief line of chord progression therein could have been mistaken for writing out of Utrenja or Moses und Aaron instead.

Obsequious yielding to his singers on stage, when in violation of Verdi’s rhythms, came across highly insipid. Dance episodes during the first two acts were clunky - the dance of the priestesses flat-footed and loud. Amneris’s slaves, even as looking forward to a few special privileges in lieu of the day being prep for her nuptials with Radames, sounded tired and disengaged – with loud, clunky harp to accompany them. What the Met orchestra and chorus has been able to offer before in terms of refinement under Levine and others seemed to have exited for left field entirely. The grandeur of such an occasion, to see Aida at the Met, with chorus sounding at times so thin, went almost entirely missing. Ira Siff’s comparative evaluation of this cast - for it to have been just as good for us in our own day as Toscanini’s of the 1908-09 season (Destinn, Louise Homer, Caruso) had been for that time, Verdi’s Aida notwithstanding - hit a new low.

Desecration from earlier this Met season of again a true masterpiece - what has so often now been left bowdlerized, with still the Toscanini butchered Alfano ending to it, was on display on PBS this evening. When bare-chested Pu-Tin-Pao came on stage, in the stage directions, for the Liu, I thought he could have been headed for either the somewhat raw sounding Turandot (Maria Guleghina) or Calaf (Marcello Giordani) instead, for what had happened to the shape of so many of Puccini’s phrases, pitch, etc. Andris Nelsons (Met debut), with deft touch for some of Puccini’s sonorities, made something close to muzak of the rest. - in place of ability for the modernism of Puccini’s score to make it to the fore. After shaky ensemble for passacaglia to flaccidly end Act One, one then picked up real garden variety Tommy Dorsey waltz of just about the entire Riddle Scene to end Act Two.

In Berlioz’s day, should this Turandot have occurred in Beijing then, someone would have had to step in to save even Nelsons, lest he not have been able to leave Tian’anmen with ears and nose intact after likely encounter with Pu-Tin Pao himself Otherwise, what would we be able to make today of what Berlioz wrote on the subject of penalties for desecrators? The Liu (Marina Poplavaskaya) practically or artistically emerged the victor of the day, even with her own moments of questionable intonation. Pu-Tin-Pao still perhaps had score to settle with her - for her execrable Elisabetta in Don Carlo weeks earlier in London.

The Zeffirelli, with the three ministers doing ‘this is what we do to look Chinese for the tourists’ act, looked as silly as any production of his has ever looked, all the excessive dancing around and posing with fans hardly less. Nelsons took the same bad cut to the ministers’ scene opening Act Two as usually taken. No gravitas was able to be found for anything, least of all either the tone of Samuel Ramey or Charles Anthony as senior figures on stage, or as to what Puccini’s final opera could have meant. It would have hardly mattered if the highly relevant Berio finale of today could have been performed. With both the staging and Nelson’s mix of chartreuse into Puccini’s sonorities, even for Puccini composed like he did – the cause would have most likely been lost anyway. What Turandot might offer in terms of grandeur got compromised by road-show quality work (including in number on stage) from the Met chorus.

A galavanting about Puccini's Tosca - 10.10.2009 - Met in HD (on PBS)

This was about the worst joke of a staging of Puccini’s Tosca I have yet run across, and as one with real appreciation for productions by Nuria Espert, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, Luca Ronconi, next to which the new Luc Bondy production hardly raises a whimper thus far.

One incongruity followed another throughout, and for butt-ugly sets, Act One won hands down for the abstract non-representation of the St. Andrea della Valle church. The Palazzo Farnese seemed comfortably loungey, but as perhaps copied from Jonathan Miller’s production from Florence, huge maps covering the entire walls. There was little sense of where Cavaradossi might have been led to be interrogated. The last act in its abstraction of the top of Castel Sant’Angelo was the one set by Richard Peduzzi that just about entirely worked.

Angelotti (David Pittsinger) was best among the supporting cast vocally, but too casually cut a heroic figure as the rebel. Upon entering down a rope, it looked as though he just as easily could have reported in from the local gym. Moments he had with Cavaradossi not far into this proved more plausible, but still confused in how to provide meaningful perception of this character. Paul Plishka (Sacristan) emerged even less well, given so many notes sounded so raw they barely spoke; his acting emerged as just utterly silly and banal. Pissy-toned Joel Sorenson (Spoletta) relied upon overworked cliché to represent menace, the Sciarrone (James Courtney) was just barely passable - or noticeable, and Keith Miller (Jailer) had ample voice - but apparently he also had the hots for both his soldiers and for a bloodied up Cavaradossi.

Marcello Alvarez (Cavaradossi), acting and even singing the part as almost cross between Ramon Vargas and Lucky Luciano (Pavarotti) was vocally pleasant, but represented what I have always found an odious characterization of the painter. Mario Cavaradossi's putting his life on the line for his ideals and his friend Angelotti completely went for naught. Whether Bondy, Alvarez, or Pavarotti know or knew that there is a heroic accent to the part of Mario Cavaradossi, let me remind them there indeed is. Capping a thoroughly insipid evening from Alvarez was his look of surprise that he had been shot at the end of the opera, and his tendency at once to smile and grimace. His lines in defying Scarpia, upon first entering the Palazzo Farnese or being dragged in there were pouted, wimpy in place of being defiant.

When I heard that there were three whores to jolly up or service Scarpia at the start of Act Two, I falsely surmised that all this action would only carry on through “Tosca e un buon falco” and lines leading up to “Ella verra." Instead, it carried on all the way through the aria. George Gagnidze gave one of the worst performances of Scarpia in recent memory. Those who know the performing legacy of Tosca know Giuseppe Taddei’s interpretation for Karajan in the early 1960’s - though still good, my least favorite of three principals on the old Vienna Decca recording. Must you have however a dandy of a Scarpia, with legs, stature, coiffure of dainty proportions but still able to incisively issue out orders for his henchmen to carry out the carnage he will have done, then for subtlety and getting the point across most effectively this way, Taddei is your man. He fortunately got to sing it under for once a dramatically fully engaged von Karajan.

Gagnidze and much earlier Raimondi until he shaped interpretation of his own, much better than the Karajan/Raimondi contrivance on DGG, are not. Lehnhoff took similar risk in how he had the Baron Scarpia costumed (in lizard like outfit), but thanks to the intelligence of producer, maestro, and Terfel, it still worked.

George Gagnidze certainly has the figure to make Scarpia a force to be reckoned with, but vocally it was hardly ever there at all. A good raft of notes got placed badly, awkwardly. He had a way of reaching for high notes by both crooning them and placing them far back, thus increasing tendency to oddly intimate a buzzing sound. He appeared very limited in what he could give in terms of line, effective color, or menace.

His death scene, with Mattila sprawled out on a nice sofa, was a variation on Nikolaus Lehnhoff's take on this. It was incisive and menacing from Malfitano vs. Bryn Terfel, here it looked, though somewhat realistic, like such a casual way of going about it, all matter-of-fact to point of being absurd. On realistic terms, for being able to effectively issue orders to anybody, this Scarpia was an unmitigated disaster – and who, though a nice guy continued playing the somewhat twisted boppo, boffo, buffoon, through intermission interview with Susan Graham.

The man of the hour here was Karita Mattila as Tosca, as seldom did anyone else in this cast seem to have any balls, in any way. At least, Mattila had her dress and other red silks, damask to protect - alongside just mildly more serious action taking place. Her deportment, in how this was staged, more than face Mattila was putting on, seemed over whether she would get her dress torn or hair mussed up - as fetished out the Scarpia also appeared - even in the bland gaze Gagnidze gave the hall from the get-go and her in Act One. Mattila looked considerably older than her forty-nine years in how she was costumed - in black wig and wearing brown contact lenses. Her voice finally entirely came around to cooperating with what her deeply considered expressive, psychological, and dramatic interests were with her part - for a fine Third Act, slightly unexpectedly. Her expression,as Tosca, tended to be severe, and even in expecting relief to what has been a most terrible situation overnight, more serious than but very seldom that of the Cavaradossi. Cavaradossi, the way Alvarez played him, always looked easy to deceive. Mattila's descent down from high B-Flat to G toward end of Vissi d’arte below skidded off at the moviecast, same way it had two weeks earlier at opener under Levine.

Most worrying now is Karita Mattila’s tendency to press down on notes for about interval of a fifth below the passaggio and on notes surrounding it as well. Such now makes her ability to maintain legato tenuous, needless to say tense, with much threat of breaking up the line and cantabile infusing it. Even so, there were moments Mattila indeed brought to life, even against what had perhaps been Luc Bondy's original intent or bet on how things should go. Affecting were moments when Tosca bewails being prisoner for the evening to the royal celebrations, similar to my making myself prisoner to watching this dreadful performance of the opera this evening, and her pleas to Scarpia that she can not go on (“non posso piu”) with her lover having to endure the pain. Some air of vulnerability could still prevail - more effectively than from Eva Marton here in 1991, as approximate in pitch and uneven in focus as Marton so easily lapsed into being as well.

Sure there is toughness there, enough to kill Scarpia, but how then can we be moved by her plight if this is it? The scene of her leap from the parapet was silly, with byplay with Jailer up and almost enough to tumble the Jailer down the stairs. A double of hers made at the end a suspended leap into dead air, a stunt that looked so inconsequential, even cartoonish, to have deserved loud booing from across the hall.

For the atmospheric prelude to Act Three, under constantly flaccid leadership by John Colaneri, we had a session of not how to necessarily do target practice, but how to stage it with rifles so long as to more resemble pointed sticks – nudge, nudge, wink, wink. The Jailer looked up his men up and down very nicely, then physically separating Cavaradossi from Tosca when Cavaradossi must be led away as though to say ‘he’s mine.’ It just so happens to be too bad Keith Miller is not quite half the comedian John Cleese was in his heyday. Marcelo Alvarez then came on for ‘E lucevan’, entirely in love with his own voice and nuance for shaping it, with no more than just casual sense of any despondency about what might happen next.

It is nice that he shapes the lines to his part with much amore. As an aside, I prefer a character out of this to emerge, a reason for Cavaradossi to be part of the action. Equally limp and indecisive was Luc Bondy’s decision to make Scarpia into a total wuss, to be crying at Tosca’s feet, as was said of opening night, at her request for safe conduct to Civitavecchia, not to mention Scarpia’s brief sputtering back to life for “Avanti a lui ….” Perhaps he could have sputtered "Avanti a me" instead. Mattila’s collapsing back on a divan to fan herself and hyperventilate was oddly effective, but camera three seconds later following her backstage - with Mattila still looking worked up by what she had just done - even ruined that - handlers and Susan Graham all at the ready to fawn over her.

Peter, I mean Peter Gelb, give your audience please and your singers for once some friggin' space! Backstage interviews are fine, but please like lets say two minutes to enjoy a minute of curtain calls, catch our breaths, take in what we have just witnessed - or there may come a day not long from now that I will cease attending Met in HD altogether. Those artists who show up on your stage, perform, conduct your operas with integrity, direct them with integrity, will still get the respect and praise they deserve.

Why was it, Peter, that Luc Bondy, who has directed such fine productions as Salome and Don Carlos not committed to something with more integrity than what came on here? This is a production almost worth mothballing more than anything else – as much as the Lucia (Zambello) and Trovatore (Vick) that your predecessor, who, yes, made some mistakes, decried, but you can not with this – or one or two other fiasco’s so far you have given the Met.

The conducting tonight of John Colaneri, with no hint from anyone to step things up a bit, was not so much slow, though most certainly slow, but flaccid, weak on color. Color, atmosphere without shape does not really exist - most certainly in Puccini it does not) – He thoroughly failed to contribute anything toward dramatic impetus. Numerous entrances were not together. Levine on opening night waddled through, wallowed over textures excessively too - and missed markings of deciso almost entirely on accents (in brass especially) during the interrogation scene; though still inconclusive, there was still some sense of shape to how he conducted this. It was only incidentally during those few moments that Mattila would turn up the temperature on stage that anything emerged from this or from Colaneri, but only passively from him. Mattila next helps push this misguided attempt at Tosca on Bavarian State in Munich. The Met, under such musical leadership, especially at Met in HD, makes the company look provincial.

All the galvanting around with whores at start of Act Two proved perfect diminution of the character of Scarpia, but here as also underneath much of the way were much of the trappings of still a traditional, not controversial production of Puccini’s Tosca. We are familiar enough already with the characterization of Cavaradossi, very conventionally misguided as it is – from telecast on of Tosca conducted by James Conlon back in 1978 – equally well sung, equally pointless from tenor cast as the painter. Stormy trio at heart of Act Two looked with no trace of irony here perfectly stand-up-and-sing.

So, what if Mario Cavaradossi, as many have read, is mildly impressionable sexually? That is all fine and well - most ideally, very tastefully caught by Carlo Bergonzi, opposite Maria Callas, but Callas unlike Marton downtown, unlike Mattila too, remained the woman. This thing here was handled purely from the text, with all subtlety Bergonzi could issue forth – and thus there was still a character with whom we could fully sympathize - even as picked up from the recording studio. Callas is heard more spontaneously especially opposite Tito Gobbi live from Convent Garden the same year. Di Stefano went about Cavaradossi, opposite Callas, and Price most heroically, most affectingly so. So did quite well Placido Domingo (compromised by a little blandness, but still very well sung) and different, Mario Del Monaco, plus numerous others.

There is recently Richard Margison quite differently again, more controversially, riskily for sure than Alvarez, and even also Fabio Armiliato. If anything, the most controversial, or provocative production of Tosca I have seen yet, damagingly effective, is the Lehnhoff, starring Margison, from Amsterdam; it really did have ideas. This one either did not or got compromised by being put through committee at the Met.

All such galavanting proved was opera as just opportunity for a social occasion or party, where all the nice, obsequious things get said, even practically on cue - Susan Graham looking the bemused social matron in making much fuss. Regardless how wretchedly things were going. For sake of contrast – read an interview of Jon Vickers some time, even if you disagree with some of his ideological views. I certainly do not. For now, just let the charade carry on. There is competition out there from other forces in the global village in which we live; it can catch on, catch up before long.

Met 2009-10 opening broadcast: Puccini's Il Trittico - and perhaps other tales of being naughty to fabricate

For opening the new Met broadcast season, we got revisited the Jack O’Brien production of Trittico from near end of third season ago. Redolent of Zeffirelli’s legacy at the Met, this production accomplishes providing congenially ample, detailed backdrop to the action, while allowing each of the three stories in this to conventionally work out against it. Where this idea of producing Trittico fell short the most in 2007, it also did here, even if less so than before, with Il Tabarro. David Cangelosi (Il Tinca) incisively excited yet again minimal passion - just assumed to be enough on which to get by - from Salvatore Licitra (Luigi). Paul Plishka made his crusty vocal state apparent as Il Talpa and Stephanie Blythe just minimally more insightful her casual romp through La Frugola,

We all know that Licitra is not a Del Monaco in either weight or volume, but there is still something to be made of Luig, more than coasting through it. He even took his murderous altercation with Michele matter-of-fact. Luigi’s pent-up anger can still cut through an overall countenance of vulnerability. Licitra’s affable tone was pleasant, except for strained high notes, but it all related yet again close to nothing as Luigi.

Zeljko Lucic, fine recent Macbeth for Levine, was Michele.. His best assets were his dark tone, evenness of articulation and seriousness about assignment as stevedore boss. Except for slight strain in achieving a few high notes, Lucic was still confident in achieving the overall tessitura. What quickly became apparent too, in catching the introversion of a good Michele, was a constant emotional reserve that missed some change of mood and color (harmony) here and there, for instance in Michele’s attempt to draw some fresh warmth out of the Giorgetta right next to him. The end of his arioso “Resto vicino a me” emerged more as vocal achievement than anything else - his brief line of ‘squaldrina’ (‘whore”) so mulled over and laughter at the very end in revealing to Giorgetta her dead lover - somewhat a misplaced Karloff or Vincent Price applied irony - highly doubtful here. Not all was lost. Lucic stopped well short of making caricature of Michele, in delivering vocal eloquence, and some sense of inner frustration and anguish.

Patricia Racette, essaying all three soprano leads, came across most curious as Giorgetta. After Stratas and Scotto, she becomes the third to do so, all three at once, at the Met. Malfitano also did for Chicago some nearly ten years ago. Lower register for Giorgetta means the most that it does for any of the three leads. Racette gratefully found some reserves upon which to draw that way. Middle register came across grainy and hollow, but curiously enough with less pitch problems than afflicted her Cio-Cio San last season. Passaggio and higher were still unstable, even with. sympathy for Giorgetta’s frustration and plight still made clearly apparent. Similar to Paoletta Marrocu’s Giorgetta for Chailly, there was touch of soubrette, though partly thanks to incredibly insightful staging at La Scala put to more specific use there than here. An all knowing earnestness to Giorgetta in how Racette played this also worked against her and perhaps also against our sympathies as well. Racette muted expected passion for Luigi and expression of desire for freedom from situation in which Giorgetta finds herself.

The Patricia Racette - as publicity writes - that dissolved into each heroine in Trittico, came about most, if still overtly so, as Angelica. Some quavery tone compromised both her opening offstage solo and start to refrain of “I desideri sono i fiori del vivi,” but with the latter a fully formed individual indeed emerged the most it had yet in this Trittico. Racette very well found somber color and warmth for the episode with the wasp stung sister, and very well too beseeching tone, moments of hysteria and deep sadness so well by end of central scene with the Princess. “Senza mamma” was felt to just significant extent from within, deeply moving, but compromised by two things – too much sobbing, gasping during orchestral interlude for slow exit of the aunt soon before and tone incapable of placing quite right - getting stuck in groove on sustained notes near the break. One had to admire how very closely Racette listened Saturday for intonation, for it not to go so far astray as for Butterfly and Don Carlo still recently from the Met.

One could also suspect some copying of Scotto’s interpretation – noticeably so in the death scene. Scotto, well understood by Racette, conveys on disc how different from her it is interpretively, given her personality and what different feeling she would have for Angelica from more culturally inbred information she naturally had for the part. Scotto was still not ultimately more a genuine Angelica than Racette. Racette invested tremendous adrenaline into making the last twenty minutes of this work the way they did for her, to be able to issue forth tone and also line of some quality from deep below and the larynx. She did so in such a way that could have risked for her more damage than already some faulty technique over so much time. Her Lauretta, while sincere, in Gianni Schicchi, sounded both mature and knowing, with persistent wobble above the staff.

Here was still an estimable achievement - one, doing all three heroines in one night, not easy at all – one often resulting in one compromise or another – with the dangerous tessitura in Angelica and considerable difference between how all three parts are written. Barbara Frittoli had the more even tone and legato, more restrained poise as Angelica in 2007, making something, mildly remindful of Tebaldi, equally moving of it then.

Wendy White and Barbara Dever repeated their Monitor and Novices ‘assistant principal’ from two years back - authoritatively so. White had the steadier tone and air of authority and sympathy - Dever the chestier, mildly more incisive, with crack to the sound in issuing reprimands hither and yond – remindful perhaps of how Fedora Barbieri sounded at it. Heidi Grant Murphy, occasionally exposing some thinness of sound, filled such out in echoing some of what had preceded her from Racette on early refrain with very convincing warmth; she ideally found the naïve, sad, and charming simplicity of Genoveffia to near Cotrubas levels. The musical and interpretative growth of this artist, through the Angel for Metzmacher in Messiaen last year at the Proms has been something lately very noteworthy. Tamara Mumford was still stern but more warmly authoritative as the Abbess, toward fitting new interpretative profile for upcoming meeting between Angelica and the Princess than the more incisively stern Patricia Risley in 2007. The two lay sisters lacked sufficient intonation, but two alms sisters expressively won our sympathies, as did the sweet toned Dolcina (Jennifer Check).

Alright! Time now for Steffi – not the one on ABC News– as to help kick off now a new season of the Meg and Ira show. What is to make of such incomplete synopsis with full interview cut-ins of Miss Blythe? Are we then to start on episode of One Life to Live or Guiding Light? Reckless daughter of estate shows up to then be informed of dead child – notification, herb preparation on Friday, suicide on the Monday. I mean, is this Miss Blythe or could it be instead Stephanie Forrester (or better yet if she could still sing – Maureen Forrester)? With all the consultants, publicity the Met hires, why not Susan Flannery? At one point, I was fully expecting news of hot dates out on the town for cocktails with young, dashing Albanian tenor before all got said and done – excesses that Ms. Flannery might recall for her character – or perhaps own personal life as well?

Sure, there are back stories to any character here, but if you will, please show me where in the music. We should not be getting melodramatic excess for scene with the Princess either; both ways quickly turn to bathos all the same. Almost churlish to mention it, but the one Trittico I have run across that most successfully avoided both potential problems for this scene was with Barbara Frittoli and the more aged sounding Marjana Lipovsek for Chailly and Ronconi. Certainly, Miss Blythe has grown in her understanding of the part, but vis-à-vis the music, somehow sounded distracted this time, as she also did so much as informed by byplay with Saimir Pirgu during Gianni Schicchi. We can fully surmise that Zita has done much the same thing in gathering up a few potentially undocumented immigrants herself. Here is indeed a real artist - with the fine voice, beautiful technique and stamina Miss Blythe offers. Churlish though it may be to mention it, but since Ronconi/Chailly, nobody at the Met has come up with any better. In the music of Trittico, as well in theater linguistics, there are what are called gaps. Come to think of it, it is the midcult pop mysticism of how the Met’s Suor Angelica ends that by now has become rather silly, as much as anything else.

In film technique that Trittico, out of all Puccini wrote, may have influenced the most, one has suture to fill in gaps mentioned, suture that protects or consoles us from encounter with the Real, on Jacques Lacan terms. Here so much of society is made up of the entire hierarchy of the family, the convent, the whole social order running things that in place of that insufficiency, there is also trace or stain of mysticism that Luca Ronconi uses that functions as suture in its place. Suture provides the role of something that may in a way symbolically provide some validation underneath the rest in the vicinity of the destitution of so much even in our midst. We do not need back stories. Many of us have lived life and have also seen more than enough soap opera. It makes for great coddling to bring up the Princess’s back stories, may even win new audiences, but such also, I have a flash, protects us too from work of art itself as well as from any real encounter with it thereof. The structure, the integrity, the aesthetic of Puccini’s music may demand a little more– but what do I know? Disregard what I say. Bring Susan Flannery on!

Turning at last to Gianni Schicchi, after tallying it all up, if one had to name most successful artist here, the answer is obvious – Alessandro Corbelli. I hope saying so lends some credence to hope that we need a new dvd out of this with him cast as Schicchi. The one dvd featuring him in this is so unsatisfactory, as to not generate any real humor or laughter at all.

Saimir Pirgu was the sweet toned, lyrical, astutely minded and phrased Rinuccio – better than I remember him from the broadcast of the L.A. Trittico with Thomas Allen fine in the title role. He understated “Avete torto”, to sincerely affect modesty - especially with Miss Blythe not far away, but then rose with good chutzpah for the aria’s closing lines, and soared freely, doubling a wobbly Racette for closing refrain on the balcony. Blythe – more broad than specific to character - some nagging inability thus far to ideally find the part of Zita in her voice - and Racette I have mentioned already.

Donato di Stefano repeated his sense of cross between gravitas and parody of such to perfection as Simone. Patrick Carfizzi went out of his way to make Betto appear crotchety, while incisive with his words. Patricia Risley and Jennifer Check had in each their individual manner the dolcezza for Ciesca and Nella. Risley on purpose made something more clearly hypocritical of Ciesca, to great humorous effect – both artists repeats from last time. Paul Plishka evinced comic gifts very well as the doctor, James Courtney haughty, equally benighted sense of authority as the notary to risible effect.

As for Stefano Ranzani, he offered more a mixed bag, in terms of results, than did Levine in 2007. There were elements of each drama for which he showed sympathy, others that eluded him. His Il Tabarro, while Levine indeed gave us cleaner ensemble and more secure downbeats, had the earthier, grittier quality to it. Hanging this Trittico on the broad panoramas of the O’Brien production is tricky, to say the least, also its great charm that helped trip up Levine. More it was issues perhaps on how to ideally coordinate it all with at times temptation to still apply the broad brush that may have eluded Ranzani. Sense of what harmonic changes occur and how they fit and interact, attendant on shifts in light of the early evening sky and of mood of the river below require in Il Tabarro a little more rubato than Ranzani felt comfortable offering us. Even while tentative, Ranzani's feel for color and atmosphere was much preferable to that of Levine.

Levine found the more Gallic delicacy, luminous quality of sonority for Suor Angelica, the opening of which Ranzani, too broad, made just generically plush. Opening sonorities, slow current of pulsation underneath, to avoid things starting flat-line for bird call as halo above, got compromised. As the convent came to life however, so did Ranzani, with him supporting his singers well and finding together with fine supporting cast the simplicity of their lines. Ranzani then mustered up the vitality to support Racette in full, though hinting at sinking all into bathos – especially if all had gone more broadly than it had already.

Schicchi turned out probably best for Ranzani, though one had to wait to hear forthright enough the boisterous laugh that opens the dramma giocoso until it would repeat after the new will had been read. Corbelli was firing off on all cylinders here, so nobody could have done anything at this point but follow him.

“Avete torto” lacked rhythmic swagger - chords underneath to potentially lend things more oomph than anybody at first mustered for it. Much of the parody, wit of the story still made it across the footlights incisively, if slightly more awkwardly at several junctures than with Levine. Evident here was more a rambunctious eccentricity of the writing. Ranzani capped all off with gorgeous sense of twilight for young couple over sight of Il Duomo and all Florence behind them - nostalgia laden morbidezza from the strings on aching consequent, followed by speech and boisterous close to everything.

Corbelli had the greater freedom at the Met – than on dvd - especially this time, in investing Schicchi, marking the bitterness in the writing, with the peasant manner of the guy with utmost simplicity. This included in his specific dealing with each family member and with those helping tend to business. His was most of all the great wit, savage at times, especially during the reading of the will, and ingenuity. The part has deepened for him - perhaps a virtue or two of the Glyndebourne Schicchi I have overlooked. Next to this at the Met, it looks and feels so very stiff, whereas at the Met Corbelli is free.

Jack O’Brien does not quite have the complete picture in giving us such a naturalistic approach. There is so much, with all its intentional gaps this piece has, so few of those underlined by Puccini, easy to miss. The casual, glib, quasi-Broadway manner with Il Tabarro shortchanges it - such as would be an outing by the nouveau riche to do the radical chic thing and go slumming through the lower depths. In all perspective, much of the story still does get told, though missing what may indeed lie beneath its surface. I found Ira a bit derisive at intermission about idea of allowing room for a (small) barge onstage. Well, it so happens, Ira, that the music in Il Tabarro does obsess somewhat with the river; should one crowd out the river for magnificent panorama of Paris, then one could have missed or have significantly undercut something – Puccini’s music.

Alessandro Corbelli may have walked to a triumph here, albeit a bit vocally thicker as Schicchi than previously at the Met, but free as he ever has been at anything before – and absolutely hilarious. He will agree– why Ronconi and Chailly were so incredibly successful at this in Milan – that the hero at end of day with Il Trittico is always still Giacomo Puccini.