BBC: Royal Opera McVicar Aida - serious casting, podium upgrade from last season provides fine musico-dramatic focus. Fabio Luisi.

It turned out well for David McVicar’s production, new last season, of Verdi’s Aida to have received a second chance at Royal Opera, given how strapped it got with musically disastrous results last season. BBC annotation then more emphasized a kind of generalized smorgasbord of costuming styles, generations from ancient past to modern, something to please everybody, being thrust upon Convent Garden stage. This year their sound bite leaned much more on the garish, even graphic violence to depict of an at best vaguely located totalitarian war-mongering state – equally de-Egyptologized – no elephants, no pyramids – as how things appeared last year. Figures to represent shriveling up, rotting away corpses off the field of battle hung off meat hooks above Amneris’s richly marble enhanced boudoir.

More assured, confident to conduct this performance was Fabio Luisi. Most likely helpful too was the cancellation of Micaela Carosi - given how inadequate last year she proved for the title role – thereby Ukranian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska made her Convent Garden debut. Dramatically, she provided cogent, well considered understanding of much at stake. Vulnerability of Aida’s plight, naivete with Amneris, toughness under stress, subtly and directly manipulative way of compromising Radames all evidenced themselves.

Good line, legato, coloration of the above adequately carried forth, albeit compromised by occasional cloudy tone, soggy diction, bluster toward pushing up the sound, artificially darkening it thereby; thickness around the break made this at times a real issue. Of concern also was tentative stab to get more lyrical acuti to float, sound less obviously detached, and thereby to keep intonation stable. For heroic utterances, such as closing Act Two, she clearly made herself heard, even while flat, and through Nile duet with Amonasro as well. Flexibility to lighten voice during ‘O patria mia’ and through much of ‘Fuggiam inospiti’’ later along the Nile was lovely. Grasp of how to float her sound waited several lines or so however to establish itself during tomb scene with Radames.
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Roberto Alagna, largely assisted by deft, sensitive accompaniment from Fabio Luisi, revealed a more probing look at Radames through tendency to scale voice back and more subtly negotiated demands it makes than evident at La Scala several years ago – subject of the Roberto Alagna Milan Walkout, it turned out once. His sound was drier at Convent Garden than in Milan, but with considerably less of a constantly pushed up, projected quality than under a concise, more forthright Riccardo Chailly.

Some strain through ‘Celeste Aida’ was again apparent, its tessitura precariously centered around the break - as has occurred many times. Alagna still provided the smarts to define character – mix of sense of wonder and naivete innate to a good Radames – if all slightly weak at filling out heroic dimensions also characterizing the Egyptian captain. ‘Nel fiero anelito’ upon greeting Aida along the Nile Alagna provided good ring and purpose – and then shaded nuance his puzzlement at Aida’s imploring him to join her in fleeing south. Fabio Luisi proved his attentive best at not allowing Alagna to get precariously stuck for long on spinto required acuti to follow. (Radames murdering two guards during futile attempt at escape from the priests seems both indulgent, out of character). Despondency during scene with Amneris, despair with which to open the Tomb Scene and melos in head voice for final duet therein with Aida both got securely achieved. If not quite renascence of Carlo Bergonzi at lyrically essaying Radames, Alagna revealed an extra helping of nuance – beyond what may have in the Italianate repertoire been often likely during much of his past.

Olga Borodina was the regal, imposing Amneris. With years of experience at it, in fine voice sheobviated well the psychological complexity of the princess – also complexity of means by which Amneris gets her way, attempts doing so. With age, slight loss of certainty has crept in, in terms of keeping solid low notes, evenness between registers, but once past trio in Act One,, such uncertainty seemed to evaporate. Particularly moving during Act Four, an Amenris full of desperation and regret, Borodina overall made Amneris more the woman than avenging angel – stock interpretation that comes from singing the big Verdi leads three-fourths of the time. More than cantabile, melos for opening lines of Acts Two and Three, Borodina came across fully convincing as woman fully infatuated with Radames, then deeply uncomprehending of her passion going unrequited. Her feigning of concern even for Aida during Act Two, expression of empathy overall, was so good, it is still hard to believe it had not been real, albeit her ‘Trema, o schiava’s – as forceful, implacable as the best around - Borodina still insurpassable an Amneris.

Although without quite the natural bite in diction of an Italian baritone singing Verdi, Michael Volle made, secure across the range, ideal casting as Amonasro. Guelfi, Vratogna, heard at the Met, Convent Garden, Munich, La Scala, other places lack sufficient tone for ability to sustain it. Evenness of tone, assurance this way, by comparison, was here in spades. Along with fully humanizing the part, Amonasro’s plight, Volle frequently incisive with text whether using full voice or sotto voce, became all-encompassing. Volle’s catching the very circumspect and equally subtle conniving qualities of the beleagured king was all spot-on. The twenty minutes in which Amonasro must dramatically make an impression were such upon which Volle capitalized in full.

Not quite evil black ball of sound I found - as described to me by long time friend of mine who actually saw Kowaljow in London during the same run sing this. A relatively lean, still dark toned Vitalij Kowaljow, baritonal on top, mostly made convincing the both overtly firm and implacable aspects of high priest Ramfis. In providing solidity at bottom to cast overall, Kowaljow hardly ever came up short. Grasp of the solemnity of priestly character, simplicity of addressing Radames at trial directly both brought out the visionary reach typical of any good Ramfis - though vision being toxic - necessary to avoid resorting to stock villainy. Brindley Sherratt was tonally lean, all business as King of Egypt, imparting through ‘Su del Nilo’ sense of outrage out of supposedly being forced into (new) campaign against the Ethiopians. The smoky sensuous toned Preistess of Madeleine Pierard sounded probably soon worthy of larger assignments.

Several contemporary productions of Aida, probably good handful by now, offer setting generic as to specific time or location, or in case of Chris Alden’s in Berlin, updating and bringing action close to home altogether. Along with this arrives a new musical sensitivity - working toward eschewing making any characteristic pointing to much anything religious, political, social too specific. Repartee on replayed episode of PBS syndicated drama New Tricks however got me wondering about the good old legendary ancient Egyptians. From momentarily a much peeved ever headstrong Sandra Pullman to one of her detective co-workers - I paraphrase – ‘Say that again (and) I will make myself earrings out of your testicles.’ Ouch! McVicar already has accomplished near as much, as to how to suggest ancient Egypt - thus maybe not so good to provide him any further ideas.

Fabio Luisi opted for approach predominantly flowing, lyrical, mildly Teutonic in specificity over how to weigh, voice especially choral and brass sonorities. Having said that, Luisi steered mostly clear of replacing supportive line in the orchestral part with amorphous profile thereof, into which his singers should blend – as frequently occurred under Luisotti last year. Limning of string, then string-accompanied lines for flute made limpid magic out of preludes to both odd-numbered acts. Stark simplicity in building both Brahmsian stretti during Act One prelude was also insightful, as was measured pacing, attentive to getting rhythm precisely right and rests within line their full value to frame opening of the Tomb scene, infused throughout with limpid support for the condemned lovers, supple calibration of all else. Passages for brass, timpani, especially referring to priests, their asceticism Luisi replaced coming across (potentially) loudly violent or aggressive with bringing out dry sonorities strongly implied instead.

Attention to overall line and also dramatic interaction between singers, especially during the Nile Scene and last act – also during audience between Aida and Amneris and ‘Ma tu, Re’ during Act Two - was apt, mostly concise. Positive qualities to the scrupulous leadership from the pit also became evident throughout the rest, but most of the way until the opera’s second half, one had perhaps to grope around for being able to perceive any really specific point of view about Verdi’s Aida overall. This included streamlining of more forceful cabalettas - toward end of the Nile Scene and then during Act Four between Radames and Amneris. Alongside incisively minute attentiveness of Luisi to singers’ needs, while facing numerous potentially precarious moments, came some fussiness, thereby intermittently flaccidity as well, notably during the Triumphal Scene and for dances during earlier scenes.

Through the graphic violence of the staging, one could grasp issue of how any ‘lower depths’ regardless of time, ethnicity, nationality can get ‘marginated’ – word I learned this evening from repeat of PBS interview of Helen Prejean. I think word Sister Prejean wanted instead was ‘marginalized’ – during anecdotally wise citing of having temporarily resided in notorious St Thomas projects in New Orleans – concerning residents’ overall plight there. Or perhaps the word she intended might have been ‘margarinated;’ handful or two of mostly guys (Baker 13) at one fairly elite varsity, ‘Harvard of the South’ nearby opts for shaving cream instead.

Nevertheless good sense of purpose, resolve in mind here got Aida performed responsibly well, at last bringing dignity to bear upon David McVicar’s still relatively new production.

Met: Lyric mezzo Garanca (with help from Alagna) heats up Carmen in mismatch with stodgy Nezet-Seguin (debut)

The Met has just unleashed a certainly brassy, brick wall-laden looking new production of Carmen to compete with new one opening season at La Scala six weeks ago. There may have been more connecting substance to the new Richard Eyre production than there was to the more experimental Emma Dante, given Eyre's more cogently traditional experience in theater and two previous times with opera - compared with Dante making her operatic debut. Still, the new Eyre production, as reported to me, has also its own way of being obtrusive. Such include choreography for numerous entr’actes, plus stance of Escamillo with drawn sword over slain bull next to sprawled out dead Carmen - all to come across heavy-handed and cliched. It has been heard that Alagna and Garanca had ahead of time the final scene of this rehearsed from having performed Carmen together at Convent Garden several months ago.

Most attractive in this cast was same as at La Scala the Slavic woman in the title role, in this case a refreshingly plummier toned Latvian in place of a Georgian. With Rachvelishvili, there was more spice to the tone, bite, incisiveness with text. Elina Garanca had the greater luster, tonal warmth - little of it used to infuse Carmen with any more than sensual allure. Her singing had that aplenty if less directly enticing manner of projecting it, near as much as Rachvelishvili - with different assets at her disposal. Garanca made Carmen of cooler indifference to Don Jose overall, less comprehending of why he should ever obstruct her way. If anything seemed mildly self-conscious about her interpretation, it was in taking on distraught Carmen’s imminent downfall. A pretty good dose of fatalism got applied alongside; when time came, toughness for sure for being violently confronted by Don Jose.

A few attempts at being incisive by Garanca, mostly a lyric, derailed a bit, such as on Ta-ra-ta-ta’s straying off pitch - betraying perhaps some lack of depth to lower register. The Card Song Saturday went just fine, but Garanca may have had to work the chest register for it. Low notes could a little better emerge as connected evenly with all the rest she had to offer vocally. Hers is a sound, slightly more than that of Rachvelishvili, ninety percent even across the range, and with open bloom on it from at least middle range on up. Such helped in the dance with castanets Garanca handled just fine, knowing what effect her dance has on Don Jose, but at the same time not at all caring one whit. There is room for Elina Garanca’s interpretation of Carmen to grow, but already much accomplishment indeed - certainly different, but equally distinctive as that of the Georgian girl who just made her own auspicious debut in Milan.

The most convincing color for anyone cast in either Carmen for Bizet was that of Roberto Alagna as Don Jose. From the get-go, his Jose was certainly preferable and more engaged for sure than considerably more effortful and frequently misguidedly placed Jonas Kaufmann. Alagna was heard to best effect, most lyrically, even one could suggest seductively in his Act One duet with Micaela. His having to turn up the heat for passionate and angry encounters with Carmen introduced some strain; when such occurred, all vocal allure about this Jose went a little south on him. This was even so for several phrases during the Flower Song, as finely anticipated graded attempt he made at it – with just about all the right things in mind toward making it work. His heavy bench pressing of several other things during second half of Act Two had me slightly worried, as just how there could possibly be any extra vocal capital on which to depend upon for the later finale to come. Apart from obviously losing some intonation on several notes during Act Four, he handled the scene quite well – reckoning that here is not the place for the more sympathetic qualities of Don Jose to be forefront anyway.

Barbara Frittoli (Micaela), while giving hint of more experience than ideal, but avoiding risk of cloying, made slightly heavy weather of attempting to sing softly for especially her Act One duet with Alagna. She also lost a little intonation in darkening her sound for brief middle section of her big Act Three aria. Otherwise, the aria went very well, along with well limned entries later in this scene to discreetly make futile attempt to calm Don Jose down. The aria in Act Three had excellent line, fine sense of purpose to it, with there being clear goal in mind as to what Micaela is about. There was indeed a little more here than just a wallflower on stage – and as opposed to the Dali or Bunuel-esque graying Jocasta like figure that Emma Dante put on stage for a wobbly Adriana Damato (who sounded older than Frittoli for sure) to sing Micaela in the mountain pass.

Teddy Tadu Rhodes was, on merely three hours notice, the raw sounding Escamillo. He managed to firm up for incisive exchanges with Alagna during Act Three, but everything else sounded coarse, non legato, often poorly tuned – no improvement on Erwin Schrott or, as reported, on originally scheduled Mariusz Kwiecien either. Extra stage noise intruded upon ‘Votre toast’, all as kind of layered on – also the case during childrens’ marching scene as well. The latter also had badly placed accents for their number during their early scene. Trevor Scheunemann was the somewhat tremulous sounding Morales, and nearly as much - Keith Miller’s Zuniga.

Elizabeth Caballero (Frasquita) and Sandra Piques-Eddy (Mercedes) were both bright with diction, well-animated as Carmen’s sidekicks, but with Caballero slightly hooty on top. With Earle Patriarco (Dancaire) tonally dry, slightly raspy, he and Keith Jameson (Remendado) adequately filled the two smugglers.

The podium belonged to the certainly affable, handsome, sexy, charismatic, highly diplomatic, but erratic Yannick Nezet-Seguin. There is certainly some theatricality to his work and ability to work with solo singers well. His work with the Met orchestra however was mostly dry, bland in color, unvarying in dynamics. His impetus for choruses in Carmen was more often than not too focused on what goes on orchestrally underneath, instead of really engaging with such the choral passages, such as they are. A slapdash surface brilliance very obviously came to the fore. The agitated factory girls’ chorus quickly turned garden-variety breathless. It was not so much for any tempo being too fast, as for strings, marked very softly underneath playing loudly with so much fuss to downbeats. With so much going on, words were lost; what the agitation Carmen and another girl have stirred up to entertain Zuniga could have meant also became lost

Subtler accenting got missed as well, for instance with flabby accompaniment to the Seguidilla, then obviously jerked orchestral interlude into foreground, following one verse. Earlier, there was so heavy a push to the childrens’ chorus that their accenting all but completely fell off. It sounded as though with some of his incisive accenting he might have consulted a Carlos Kleiber recording of Carmen; such emerged here however as getting mixed in with elements from elsewhere – nothing unexpected.

The ‘dragoons of Alcala’ entr’acte starting Act Two, better yet the smugglers’ chorus following stiffly played prelude to Act Three emerged relaxed. Color then healthily emerged, as it also did for the Card Song and for first portion or two of the smugglers’ ensemble later. Closing portions of the latter however got too pushed, as also the duel between Jose and Escamillo, the latter to extent of becoming really silly. In the long run, a forty-minute Third Act ultimately failed to cohere well at all. The very ending of the opera, never getting too rushed, emerged as more or less nondescriptly grandiose instead of in any way shocking; placement, accenting of offstage chorus was weakly calibrated against the rest, to not sound as though offstage. It was evident with as well the prudence to get comfortably out of the way for Act One duet for Don Jose and Micaela, that Nezet-Seguin has the ear to make Bizet’s Carmen work; all however is still too self-conscious. Here is the easy readiness to follow ready-made cliché in place of truly intimate working familiarity with score at hand.

Just about all the Ernest Guiraud recitative, widely discredited, replaced spoken dialogue. Should Richard Eyre’s production happen as meaningfully as Emma Dante’s in Milan, it absolutely must go. Accompanied introduction “C’est des contrebandiers” to Micaela’s aria could stay, but preferably as following spoken dialogue should it do so - the one possible exception. Composed recitative however for Zuniga during the Seguidilla, instead of his speaking on what should follow rudely breaks the mood and makes the music too formal. Nezet-Seguin paused well for it, as though not to do so would be to apologize for indeed its very insignificance. Jose’s singing of the ‘dragoons of Alcala’ offstage a cappella is equally ruined by break-in of recitative; words as spoken by people hearing tune from afar feels much more natural. A moment of abbreviated spoken dialogue preceded the smugglers’ ensemble halfway through Act Three, proving refreshing but self-contradictory for both the Met and Nezet-Seguin.

It is seldom I remain tuned into a Carmen using recitative, but informed that I am to witness such an important debut on the Met podium by listening in, I felt only much obliged. Furthermore the Met works under rather strict time constraints now; here it was clearly not taken into account that recitative takes longer to perform for same text - much more interesting spoken, What felt stodgier, moreover, was Nezet-Seguin’s working thereof. Even Karajan, on his last recording of Carmen (DGG), used spoken dialogue.

Many pushed phrase endings, rushed tempi only indicated a heavier approach to both Bizet’s rhythms and this music’s life overall. Barenboim’s approach was admittedly, even unabashedly heavier than that of Nezet-Seguin, but it stuck with the spoken dialogue and allowed color to more naturally emerge for many lyrical sections and better supported his singers. There is also more color to flexibly draw out of La Scala’s orchestra than from the Met. One certainly left the Barenboim with less confused impression of how he heard Carmen than what one heard Saturday. La Scala chorus consistently carried sharper profile than did the Met.

Meg and Ira – after pleasant interview – described Nezet-Seguin as someone generous with his time - never to look put-upon. One had to scratch one’s head wondering who the emcees may have had in mind for comparison. The Met should then certainly have a conductor who fits in - nobody in other words to insist upon anything, as all that should safely be left up to Peter Gelb. If these are indeed the qualities the Met seeks, that of being able to fit in and not ever to look or appear put-upon, why then not have had Nezet-Seguin already this season for the Strauss over the past few weeks? It sounded like he got all rehearsal time he needed for Carmen. We maybe then could perhaps only guess what results might have been had the repertoire instead been Richard Strauss.