Met: Verdi's Attila - a Met first - Ricccardo Muti (debut) conducts new Audi production - Verdi's scourge on early 21st century voices

It has always slightly baffled me that Attila has received as much currency as it has for even early Verdi, as opposed to several other operas that never get staged here. It does have its commercial appeal - its choruses, ieading bass part, larger than life notoriety of the great Hun. It even contains a few pet would-be Wagernisms, while still safe for Verdi to include such resemblances in his work. How many times have we heard, quite mistakenly that Otello and Falstaff owe a debt to the Nordic bard? No debt here is really owed anybody either, but naïve choral writing a few places, not to mention invocations to Wotan, Valhalla, other Norse symbology, does crop up.

Attila, along with the immature Oberto, is one of only two operas by Verdi in which the leading character is a bass. Today it begins to get easier to name what even early Verdi operas the Met has never put on instead of those the Met has, this is the Met’s first Attila, in new plenty abstract production by Pierre Audi. Playing it safe instead of choosing a work more obviously complex than this one is Riccardo Muti, who chose Attila as his Met conducting and broadcast debut. I still await the Met’s first Battaglia di Legnano and I Due Foscari, but listening to Meg and Ira prattle on yesterday, one might think that Attila holds a place close to that of Simon Boccanegra in the Verdi canon.

Riccardo Muti, during intermission, invited perhaps us a little too well to see perhaps an error in conceptualization or two in how he and the Met went about doing Verdi’s Attila. First of all, to roughly paraphrase what he said, a good approach to even Attila begins from the podium. Even though Muti is right, there is with a piece like this only so far one can go this way without missing something entirely. With the new abstract production the Met has put on - explained in part by either Muti or somebody for what spiritual values might get brought to the fore this way - there is something here too that can too readily invite misperception. In the ways that Wagner, Weber, Verdi coincide, better elucidated by Julian Budden than even I can muster, the naivete on Verdi’s part is obvious. Certainly there are some moments in Attila where Verdi pulls off a certain gravitas for lines for mostly his principal characters, but there are also stretches therein where such inspiration runs thin, even precariously so occasionally.

Remarkable about Attila, to distinguish it from Nabucco and other early Risorgimento classics, is at least underneath the surface here the betrayal at least to critical ears some loss of confidence in the movement - even as to why to compose for it and so brashly. Orchestra and chorus, to help make Muti’s argument, rose prominently to the fore - even exaggeratedly so at times for such brashness and foursquare construction to come across as two-dimensional as certainly it does. Consider Il Trovatore of six or seven years later, Trovatore is characterized, much of it, by a thrust, drive, projection forward that begins to engulf the characters just starting to get swallowed up in vortex of the action involving their very selves. Verdi, in closing Attila, chose the option of quartet for principals, involving expression of their individual emotions, reaction to what is going on, over nationalistic hymn. In doing so, even for Attila, he chose wisely – only to lightly contradict how one still should most likely characterize Attila.

Here is the rub. It is a given that one is not going to make Attila work from just having a strong presence on the podium and accompanying attitude of high seriousness in any form so much. Of course, in terms of tight rhythm, making the more subtle pages of Attila count, such finesse as Muti calls for is to be reckoned extremely valuable. One though, including even Muti, must keep a little of the naivete in mind, or else one will come up with somewhat stilted results. Such is a trap, even after all the years Muti has conducted Verdi that he did not quite entirely avoid here. The thing most lacking in this Attila for either Muti or it was heroic voices. More than anything else, this was what was lacking.

Julian Budden cites Marini as being either the first or a very early Attila, a basso cantante for the part – in discussing the prologue duet between Roman general and Attila. Ildar Abdrazakov filled this bill somewhere between halfway and two-thirds well, depending on one’s perspective. He clearly sounded the Attila of the cantante variety, not the profondo;’ most of the duet with baritone Ezio, fluidly moving about in thirds worked very well for him. Otherwise, before ensemble following the papal confrontation at end of Act One for instance, Abdrazakov tended to push, and then his voice immediately became tremulous, wobbly, lacking in true line or legato. I even perhaps detected a few accents of the Sam Ramey interpretation and type of production Abdrazakov apparently had invited or sneaked in here and there. Sure enough, at end of Act One, there was Sam Ramey to stand right before this new Attila at the Met. Making way out of this moment and into later scenes, Abadrazakov more effortlessly relied upon naturally dark color and more relaxed means of production, attitude of sobriety to make something haunting out of much that followed. The part does in places hold promise for what is to come in mature Verdi – Fiesco, Guardiano, Procida, Ramfis, etc.

I speculate here, but what could have perhaps prompted an immediate rethink on Abadrazakov’s part, approximately halfway through Saturday was the brief stand-off with Ramey as Leone and anticipation thereof from his aria “Mentre gonfiarsi.” Muti gave the underpinning of “Di flagellar” all the forza one could ask for, but Abadrazakov lightly splayed on the D-flats to extent that practically all weight to his lines dissipated, giving ‘Di flagellar’ something of a Flying Nun intensity. Ramey’s Leone, once down several notes to A-flat from D-flat may have disintegrated into wobble, but his initial top D-flat or two matched Muti for sufficient heft with which Muti backed him.

Odabella is a part hybrid between Abigaille warrior maiden and lirico spinto. Violeta Urmana is more convincing as the former, but perhaps not by much. Her top, when not pressed upon, does sound lyric, much as Jessye Norman could often sound like a lyric soprano above the staff, and a mezzo much of the rest of the way down. Norman, however, stayed away from Odabella and similar. These are, after all, still two quite different singers. For more heroic accents in Odabella, Urmana mostly has them as far as making it to top of the staff, but above the staff, the tone turns hard, tight, and when pushed, really strident. Some of Odabella’s tessitura is slightly above where height of it should normally be for Urmana. By contrast, lower notes sounded full with time to prepare them well, but while rapidly so instead, slightly wan.

Most curious, in taking on such a part, Urmana’s voice now starts to show breaks between what might be detected to be as many as four, perhaps five different registers. There was in a way more of an Amneris on stage for this than really an Odabella, except when notes at the break, for instance F’s at end of ensemble closing Act Two, would also go slightly loose on Miss Urmana. In leading choral, ensemble passages, one or two in unison with the Foresto of Ramon Vargas, had both of their voices blend into, instead of lead the ensemble - such as to end the banquet scene (Act Two). The great romanza that opens Act One came across slightly cloudy – decent expression, legato otherwise – with smudged, yodeled sextuplets in cadenza toward its conclusion.

Foresto again was entrusted to quite pure Rossini-Donizetti lyric Ramon Vargas, whose top has already appeared to have again come a bit loose from middle and below, as it had often early on. I found it curious how fine a match he and Urmana made, with what heavier assignments are commonplace for her, throughout this. Vargas relaxed well on lyrical pages, such as especially for romanza to open the final scene of the opera. Notes, even for such, were at once both lightly bench-pressed and placed in head voice. Whatever forza Foresto must get across that a secure lyric spinto tenor like Bergonzi mustered very well, was nowhere to be found, however valiantly attempted.. Such valor brought from Vargas the bitter fruit of choppy line and at times questionable intonation. The Manrico-Leonora type cabaletta ending one long duet had to rest content for Urmana and Vargas to merely coast through it.

Most successful of the four principals was a relative unknown in Giovanni Meoni, to replace Carlos Alvarez on short notice, as Ezio. Nothing occurred here to overwhelm one’s impression of Abdrazakov; one sensed from Meoni too a little squeeze above the staff in reaching notes there. He had the most comfortable time though, essaying his lines, finding fine variety of color to nuance them and make, if a somewhat lean, still a forceful impression, even at the Met. The fine bloom on his voice, musical sensitivity and fine profiling of his lines throughout the brief afternoon made a few passages of Ezio’s music sound the best that they could. Russell Thomas was the equally incisive Uldino to the Foresto of Ramon Vargas, though obviously assigned the simpler task – Thomas first introduced to many of us at the Met in HD Macbeth as Malcolm.

The prelude to Attila started things off well, with good ominous color from lower reaches. Color Muti drew especially out of the Met winds and mostly flexible support he very capably gave all his cast offered much promise.. Even if this could have been an Attila without singers, Muti’s success with Attila one would still best judge as qualified – even with his having made his work in Verdi of practically legendary status at La Scala, drawing higher standards of playing and choral singing there than is most likely still possible today. If there was way in which one found a lapse in the quality of Muti’s work, it was not all due to Muti curiously not placing it quite entirely in perspective the thinness of inspiration in some of Verdi’s writing here. Such first became conspicuous from clean, but wan sounding violins during the prelude on their unison lines over brass.

Imbalance of voices toward end of Act Two that failed to make ensemble closing it calibrate as well as it should have was beyond Muti’s control, as was Abadrazakov’s solo entry of recitative between mostly a cappella concertato and stretto therein, restoring intonation back up almost a quarter-tone to where it belonged. Instability of Met tenors and at times of Met chorus overall was practically as disturbing as usual; this could only be fairly referred to as an internal problem.

Excessive clipping of part of the storm interlude toward the end of the Prologue was however mostly indiscretion on Muti’s part; towards what, it was hard to tell – except for pedantic accenting of major choral announcements moments later also evident. Much compartmentalization of rehearsal time that has taken place at the Met as of late is also likely a culprit. If however he did not secure optimum tone from his choral forces, Muti showed particular insistence on tight rhythmic accuracy and point from them, such that was very clear and very welcome. Muti managed to make closing passages of Attila cohere very well, with fine cumulative sense to them well anticipated and delivered.

Most of all, this Attila lacked voices – juice that must flow from such quintessential for really practically any Verdi - Otello and Falstaff only being partial exceptions.

The La Boheme that 'Met in HD' must keep bringing back - infamous 4/6/2008 listserv review (revised)

There can be no question why there are always people to attend Franco Zeffirelli’s production of La Boheme. It equally for twenty-seven years has become the tourist attraction that seeing Boris or Onegin in St Petersburg or Moscow has been for generations (or as expected on road-trips by companies from there). Intelligent touches, good singing, acting (the rather cool Stratas and Carerras, Stilwell, Morris alongside) do surface in some performances thereof - even a few insights from Zeffirelli himself. Even if the Zeffirelli Boheme was musically and dramatically brilliant enough to carry its own weight, no professional company staging any opera should ever assume such can happen automatically.

One really negative example of this was in Houston in the fall of 2002 – Handel’s Ariodante in David Alden’s quirkily brilliant, quasi-Gramscian production thereof, as conducted by Christopher Hogwood. I noticed long before it was over that Hogwood, brilliant Baroque stylist he is, was doing no more than conducting orchestral music and accompaniment; the glib acting and expression of Susan Graham and of two others followed suit. Alden, who knows something about opera - perhaps more than Hogwood - did not make it into town and left Ariodante to an assistant.

Who certainly blew Hogwood’s cover was he himself, as reported to me, at a conductor’s q&a – common practice here for several years. After the show one night, Hogwood was asked if he had any comments about the Alden production. He replied, “No.” At same time Ariodante was on, HGO continued its season opener run of La Boheme; for that I attended the ‘meet the conductor’ event.

The heavy p.r. shill Meg and Ira did on the Zeffirelli sounded assuming that we were all born yesterday - that a majority of listeners might have never heard of either Zeffirelli or the production. Angela Gheorghiu and Ramon Vargas could have been going on such a working assumption - the way they took to singing Mimi and Rodolfo.

The set sells itself. The garret for the four bohemians is spacious, comfy, roomy - swept clean to an extent that it would make the efficiency that a non-Afro, ethnic American Obama volunteer I know, just out of school has rented at the still newly, greatly renovated Rice Hotel for eight hundred a month look perhaps like boarding house space across from the Lorraine motel by comparison. This is not to denigrate my friend’s fine manner of grooming, decorum, etc., not to mention personal sacrifice he makes for ideals larger than himself. Instead, it should look a little more like a room out of such a Memphis boarding house or as how one would assume cramped space would look in the sadly dilapidated Rice Hotel ten years ago before renovation.

Equally lazy, plus effortful was much of the acting and singing of Angela Gheorghiu and Ramon Vargas. After all, the Zeffirelli production, no matter who is singing, is a success, even before the curtain rises. It sounded here like two middle-aged people affecting youthful love and passion, instead of genuine attempt at it. Intonation was suspect throughout, especially from Ghoerghiu, but ultimately from both.


Angela Gheorghiu, as Mimi, has been heard in more of a really complete interpretation of Mimi, denigrated a bit by maybe two critics as ‘in the grand manner.’ There is a tough side to the seamstress, which can be brought out without giving us the wodge and bulge at middle of the range, such as one turning over-parted soprano did, while interpretively approximating Mimi on the ‘classic’ 1977 Met telecast. Very intermittent intonation problems aside, Gheorghiu manages it very well on the very fine Decca studio recording also starring her husband; she brings surprisingly great dignity to the character. One completely feels Mimi's tragic plight. Their singing therein half a dozen times gets a little stuck in the groove of the at times relentlessly driving passion of Chailly’s work from the podium. It is, in context of assessing it, small price to pay.

Compensation seemed key to Gheorghiu’s approach yesterday, that is, for a half wiped-out middle register and insecure top, with coquettish ‘little woman’ touches she layered on, and mildly guttural verismo touches she applied to reveal to which extent what low notes are still left. Certainly, Gheorghiu is intelligent singing actress to still be able to fill out some phrases with the right color, weight, sincerity - all to have come across intermittently instead of consistently. In line with mimicking critical remark on Act 4 Traviata letter reading on a just released Los Angeles Opera dvd, some of Gheorghiu’s last dying phrases in Act Four of this sounded as though they could have led into “Io son l’umile ancella”, instead of where things are headed.


One had pretty good sense that Ramon Vargas would take the at-best dubiously Luigi Ricci interpolated high C at the end of Act One, and he certainly did. Perhaps it is true that Rodolfo is not quite right for Vargas, and certainly nothing heavier full-length than Rodolfo. The top frequently came loose from what was below. Some of the ardor too sounded cut and pasted over from or as had lapsed into the manner of singing Italian popular song. And yet, Vargas is musician enough that he, like Gheorghiu, achieved phrasing to fill out the poet’s lines, even if again only intermittently.

“Che gelida mannina” was taken a half-step down, so that the first and only high C we indeed did hear was one most likely not authentic with Puccini. It is good that it has been mentioned already that Vargas wisely delays layering it on right at the end until we hear the final grief-stricken C-sharp minor chords sound from the pit. However, the man on the podium had no concept as to how to give them the pulsation they need, toward sustaining line through their dying away at the very end.

Ludovic Tezier made the intelligently acted, but vocally threadbare Marcello, at least for its more dramatic passages. It is likely then one size too large for his voice. Notes in middle register for especially the Act 3 duet with Mimi tended to disappear into more or less a dead parlando. Ainhoa Arteta, wife of the fine Lescaut at Met in HD seven weeks ago and Musetta here in 2002 made a fine and sincere Act Four Musetta yesterday. She sang the part entirely well here then; even so it was clear, though managing all well, that the tessitura for Musetta, lies uncomfortably high for her, that is, until Act Four. Up until then we got a Musetta this time so bitchy (and badly out of tune) to likely have arrived directly off the stage of one timeless Albee play - such on which any halfway sensible Marcello would not spend significant time considering whether or not to chuck for good.

Oren Gradus, here in 2002 for both Handel and Puccini, though still a fine actor sounded conspicuously light as Colline. His voice as Colline better filled out the Wortham therein. Paul Plishka sang the landlord as though someone was constantly all the time sticking him in the ass. Any suspicion of parlando or humor the least bit genuine, also as Alcindoro, got thoroughly lost. I almost missed a very fine Papageno this season, had I not heard his fine Paolo Albiani for us, for how I first heard Carfizzi - Masetto last time Zeffirelli’s Don Giovanni was broadcast five years ago for the same reasons. Chorus and childrens’ chorus, the latter with ratty enough intonation to sound precisely like urchins, were both inadequate for either the Met or for major label dvd release.

Finest singer in this entire cast turned out Quinn Kelsey (Schaunard). Vocally, he was alone at being one hundred percent and captured every side of this enigmatic character of a musician, his vanity and capriciousness – without undue exaggeration.

Most seriously wrong with this Boheme was the conducting of Nicola Luisotti - his Met broadcast debut. Back in 2002, Houston had Sebastian Lang-Lessing, and from him, good to mention because Luisotti’s Boheme also, but more weakly helped celebrate the centenary of Karajan’s birth yesterday. His Decca recording of the opera, except for especially Freni and Panerai, I have learned long ago to despise. Most conspicuous, accompanying Ana Maria Martinez (welcome returning here now this week once more as Mimi) was the heavy enveloping of the opening of every phrase in both of her arias that almost deprived her of line, and then of so much else. Lang-Lessing had some technique to at least almost pull things off, but Luisotti seemed less certain much of the way through of what exactly he wanted. There was overall good sound and clarity from the Met orchestra in limning (as opposed to liming) touches of color and nuance, but seldom that would lead anywhere, as there was seldom ever any line.

Luisotti, said to be good at accompanying singers – one would have assumed better than Lang-Lessing - turned out no better instead. Part and parcel of being able to sing with good technique, especially on stage so large as the Met and set as large as Zeffirelli’s is to have reliable support from the pit. This was lacking. Angela Gheorghiu was said to have intervened on Chailly, about pushing tempo slightly too hard during Act Three of their studio Boheme together. I suspect she may have had to intervene, for the opposite to happen during Act Three; such intervention may have been all that could have partially saved it. Luisotti spoke during interview of seducing the orchestra and having the orchestra seduce him, and hinted at something in broken English of the peril of things falling asleep. Luisotti back-phrased so much on interlude preceding “Sono andati?” in Act Four, that “Sono andati?” simpered, fall flat as a result.

As to the chamber music approach to Puccini, and chamber like casting of some of the singers, the set on the Met stage does not match. Puccini did not write leitmotif in Boheme or anything so in-depth psychological as would call on such an approach, or even nominally that. The composer’s psychological insights in even Manon Lescaut were however of far greater depth than how lead players in yesterday’s Boheme expressed themselves. I invoked, in recently reviewing Levine’s Tristan, his chamber-music handling of numerous passages. For Puccini however, we know from the Karajan legacy, what a ridiculous euphemism this becomes, with someone (crudely) imitating him to make Puccini too easily mistakable for Mantovani or muzak, from the get-go.

Lang-Lessing, when called on during the q&a for slavishly imitating Karajan during Act Three (my impression strengthened of how much he did so earlier on as well while hearing the broadcast) took it as a compliment. When called on by my neighbor for the tackiness of allowing his tenor the high C at the end of Act One, he did not think to invoke in the least Luigi Ricci’s dissertation comments on this, as he may not know of them at all. As fine as these comments are, this option is still very musically suspect. Lang-Lessing settled for such response, as to typify a coach, small-time music department or church school faculty. Luisotti, recalling what he has said about how he accompanies singers, seemed more a coach than Lang-Lessing.

Luisotti’s accelerandi toward end of both the first garret (moving toward the high C) and Momus scenes were insipid. He was forced to speed up the tempo very awkwardly from taking the introduction to Act Three too slowly, denying pervasive sense to what might follow. Musetta’s music, looking at Decca (Chailly) liner notes here, turned to ‘(sentimentalized) operetta’ well before waltz got underway.

Trumpets starting Act Two were out of tune. Ensemble was suspect during several rapid-paced transitions to follow, and in closing quartet to Act Three - during which the Met’s horn section almost completely drowned out both Gheorghiu and Vargas. Contrasts in dynamics were otherwise frequently smoothed out, to extent of being comfortably tucked into a narrow range from piano to forte most of the way through. With things so rotten, how could have anybody enjoyed this? Well, leave not only your thinking cap, but your heart, that is if it could be for what Puccini wrote, at home. This was as much a post-Baz Luhrman Boheme as it was Zeffirelli, to whom the whole get-up this passing weekend has been tribute.

It was entirely possible to enjoy this Boheme. After all, singers in today’s culture do not really matter, except in how well they can look and charm the audience; another writer or two have invoked as to how Gheorghiu gratuitously played cutesy gestures to the gallery here. What they absolutely must not do is get in the way. God forbid any voice should ever be so distinctive to stand out slightly too much from the rest.

At the end, I just must ask then what reason would have there been for me to remain awake for more than twenty minutes of this, other than to be writing in. Lord knows, even a full, never mind very full, genuine outpouring of feeling or emotion might be more than our delicate psyches can take. It might even intrude excessively on our boundaries or space. Even Karita Mattila, in the Met Manon Lescaut and for one scene of the Houston one as well, long now proven fine singing actress, seemed obligated to play by, follow playbook of a production of this opera for the singer for whom it originated. Costumes failed to fit the taller Finnish diva correctly.

Given how lumpy Luisotti’s accents were yesterday, such as for the two octaves closing Act Three and outpouring of lament at the very end especially, it became reasonable to expect Celine Dion to enter with Titanic closing credits music to close the HD presentation. Very unlikely more than a few might bat an eyebrow.