Don Carlo
The Metropolitan Opera
Conductor: James Levine
Cast: John Botha, René Pape, Olga Borodina, Dimitri Hvorostovky, Patricia Racette, Samuel Ramey
Performances through December 23rd

Verdi’s Don Carlo returned to the Metropolitan Opera last week in the classic John Dexter production. The house has presented this production several times in recent memory, but not with a cast this strong. The crown in the jewel that is this current revival is the German bass René Pape, who sang King Phillip for the first time at the Met . It’s a role he’s presented all over Europe, including in a controversial and bloody 2004 production at the Berlin Staatsoper and he triumphed in this star-studded production. Almost his equal was the bright-voiced and clarion Johan Botha singing the title role. Botha, a South Aftrican tenor, was also debuting the role at the Met. He certainly had the strength and accuracy to carry the role and performed credibly better that the most recent Met incarnation, Richard Margison, who sang in last season’s revival and back in 2001. But despite a big and seemingly inexhaustible voice, Botha gave a performance that would certainly seem too bright and sweet for some tastes. But it works, since Carlo is somewhat of a neurotic and indecisive would-be-hero in the tradition of Hamlet. Judging by this performance, we have much to look forward to in Botha’s Walther in Die Meistersinger this spring.

Don Carlo is an ensemble piece, which means that the burden of a great performance is placed pretty much equally on all of the five leads. Two of them took the entire first act to warm up, but eventually did stunning work in the four – yes, four – subsequent acts. The Russian baritone Dimitri Hvoroskovsky and Patricia Racette both struggled to hold their own against Botha in the first act. In Racette’s case, the chemistry with Carlo seemed off. There seemed to be lack of communication in the first scene, where princess Elizabeth of France (Racette) – who is engaged to Don Carlo – comes upon him unawares in the forests of Fontainebleau. Racette also took deep breaths and just seemed generally out of sorts. Hvorostovsky – who stars in next month’s revival of Onegin – co-starring as the revolutionary Marquis of Posa, got off to a wobbly start in his first scene with Carlo as well. It was only in his lower range that the full richness of his voice could be discerned. In contrast, Olga Borodina, in the scene-chewing role of Princess Eboli, stared off on the right foot and stayed there all evening. Rounding out the cast was the inexhaustible Samuel Ramey as the Grand Inquisitor.
With such an impressive array of vocal talent, the evening proved a rich if uneven treasure trove of stunning musical moments. Borodina’s sassy and inspired interpretation of “Nei gardin” was assured and aristocratic. The pompous climax of the act two auto-da-fé, complete with a massive chorus (as well as heretics) looked and sounded terrific. Pape’s finest hour came in his deeply moving Study Scene aria “Ella giammai m’amo.” His deep, velvety and lulling voice underscored his character’s tragic sensibility. The subsequent confrontation with the Grand Inquisitor was a Don Giovanni-esque symbiosis of two darkly powerful voices. Borodina’s “O don fatale” was powerful and nuanced, while Hvoroskovsky bade Carlo farewell with his heroic “Per me giunto” and equally elegant death.
Few of the Met’s monumental stagings have stood the test of time as well as the 1979 John Dexter production, which is historically faithful without being overstuffed: a perfect companion to the sublime music. James Levine did full justice to Verdi’s best score with a deeply expressive and detailed interpretation.

In the 15 years that Ben Heppner has sung at the Metropolitan Opera, the Canadian heldentenor’s career has come full circle with the current revival of “Idomeneo,” the role with which he made his company debut in 1991.
Since then, he’s tackled some of the most demanding tenor roles in the repertoire, making a name for himself as the leading Wagnerian tenor of our time. He performed a now-legendary Tristan in 1999 alongside Jane Eaglin. After taking time off in 2002-2003 to lose 100 pounds, he was back at the Met, sounding as good as ever, first as Aeneas in the company premiere of Berlioz’s “Les Troyens” and then reprising Tristan. Just last year, he delivered wonderful accounts of Logenhrin, Florestan and his first-ever Parsifal.
A vocal force to be reckoned with, Heppner is the key reason to catch the Met’s current revival of Jean-Pierrre Ponnelle’s 1982 production (which is looking a little dusty these days), although James Levine’s exacting and intricate reading of the tuneful Mozart score and a few standout supporting performances don’t hurt.
Idomeneo, the earliest of Mozart’s seven mature operas, was the slowest to gain acceptance in the modern repertoire (Ponnelle’s production marked the Met’s premiere). It tells of the King of Crete, Idomeneo, who returns home after many years fighting in the Trojan Wars. In return for the king’s safe homecoming, however, Neptune exacts an oath from Idomeneo, who vows to sacrifice the first man he encounters once on soil. Sure enough, who but the king’s son, Idamante, should stumble upon his washed-up father? In the remaining two acts, Idomeneo must come to terms with his paternal duty, on the one hand, and religious obligation, on the other. But don’t worry – everyone turns out fine in the end (except for the conniving love-interest Elettra who goes mad and dies rather excitingly).
A few months ago, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin came under attack for its controversial production of Idomeneo, which featured severed heads of Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed alongside Neptune’s. Don’t expect any such provocation from Ponnelle’s production, where a massive stone head of Neptune vies with the singers for domination of the stage. The singers usually won. Heppner started out curiously understated. Singing with ease and agility, he needed some time to warm up to the role. Once he had, though, he sang with undeniable power and clarion pitch. It was a performance only enhanced by his naturalistic and unmannered acting. Singing Idamante was the formidable American mezzo Kristine Jepson. She sang with enough force and determination to communicate her character’s despair and disbelief on a down-to-earth, unsentimental level. Still, she was a little shaky upstairs and didn’t always clip the end of her phrases. The Greek princess Ilia, beloved of Idamante, was sung by soprano Nicole Heaston. She was best in her middle range and often produced shrill high notes. With her intense quiver and overacting, her performance often had the trappings of caricature. Her doomed rival Elettra, sung by Olga Makarina, was far more satisfying. Though guilty as well of over-acting, she sang with a colorful, honeyed voice that could modulated from dark to rich to sparkling. Making his debut as Arbace, the king’s advisor, was a sturdy and dependable Jeffrey Francis, though he began to show some strain in act two.
Mozart’s music is wonderfully lush and ornamental, and surprisingly through-composed for an opera seria. Taken as a whole, the work is full of surprising harmonic and melodic continuities that anticipate subsequent masterpieces, like Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni. In the pit, James Levine – a long-time champion of the work – conducted a supple yet dramatic account. The overture sounded jaunty, in a breathless fashion that stripped away any sense of pomposity. Throughout, Levine highlighted the athletic woodwinds while ensuring that the singers were audible at all times.

Idomeneo runs for two more performances at the Metropolitan Opera, through December 9, 2006 with Kobie van Rensburg (Idomeneo), Magdalena Kozena (Idamante), Dorthea Röschmann (Ilia) and Alexandra Deshorties (Elettra). James Levine conducts.

BY A.J. GOLDMANN 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra

Carnegie Hall

Saturday, November 11th @ 8pm 

Concert versions of operatic works are a risky proposition. When they work, they can astound. Undistracted by stage apparatus, both audience and performers can focus more intently on the music. Similarly, is that the sheer vocal power and mastery must be performed at a level that makes up for the lack of overt dramatic content. When done correctly, a concert performance can even surpass its staged counterpart (such as a performance of Das Rheingold with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic this past summer). Often, however, they can stagnate (such as a good many of the Met’s summer performances in Central Park). James Levine has long been a promoter of the arrangement, which allows conductors to assemble dream casts that hardly ever can be realized on stage. In his three-year-old tenure with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Levine has already presented concert versions of Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, Don Giovanni and Elektra. On Saturday night, he brought the BSO to Carnegie for a performance of Bartok’s seldom-heard one-act opera “Bluebeard’s Castle.” It constituted the first half of a program that marked the orchestra’s second visit to New York this season. Levine is to be doubly lauded for bringing with him two singers of unquestionable credentials– the bass Albert Dohmen and the mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter – and for presenting a work that is sure to have scared away the more timid of music-goers.

“Bluebeard’s Castle” boasts chilling libretto by the Hungarian poet and theorist Béla Balåzs, which drips with symbolist language and hauntingly inventive imagery. The enigmatic prologue was delivered by the Hungarian actor Örs Kisfaludy, who popped out from among the harps delivered his introductory poem while walking through the orchestra. Balázs’s detailedstage directions were included with the program notes. Disturbing and minimal, they tantalized the listener. Dohmen, who joined the BSO last Spring for Beethoven’s Ninth, was booming and marvelously textured, ringing out clear amid the full, neo-romantic – and often cacophonous - orchestration. Von Otter, a great Strauss interpreter of Strauss (who was a great influence on Bartok early on), was impassioned and precise, although she struggled to make herself heard amidst the orchestra. What’s more, both singers seemed to have a good command of Hungarian, a language that is poorly represented in the opera repertoire.   
 
The opers’a music is typical of Bartok’s moody, neo-romantic style, although somewhat more grim that audience’s will be accustomed to. The score is a marsh of strange and gripping harmonies, a highly evocative score full of dissonant intervals (minor seconds feature prominently).  Levine had a fine understanding of the emotional drama latent in the score, slowly diffusing the theatrical booms and outcries. The playing was crisp and  methodical. There was an ominous quality to the basses and violas as they leapt and sputtered at and it leapt and sputtered at the unlocking of each door. This is music that can alternatively fizzle out and gear up, put-putting like an engine. Levine’s approach was highly evocative of the opera’s symbolist elements, most obvious in the musical representation of the treasures that lie behind each of the seven doors in Bluebeard’s castle. For a work that is so concerned with self-destructive love and unendurable melancholy, it almost seemed appropriate that the orchestra threatened to regularly to drown the singers.    
 
As if to reward the audience for their indulgence through a difficult and inaccessible work, Levine presented the popular Brahms’ First Symphony after intermission. The notes bled together in the opening bars, which Levine rendered a lush, moody blur. But soon, the Beethovian clarity of Brahms’ orchestration shone through Levine’s more modernist inclinations (perhaps the residual influence of Bartok).    

Levine conducted the first movement with more energy than usual. In the Andante, the oboe theme was rendered particularly poignantly, the faintest of the cellos’ pizzicatos were discernable, while the first violin’s solo was played with appropriate sublimity. In the famous final movement (which directly quotes Beethoven’s Ninth) pensive trombones sounded out their chorale effectively although there was a muddled moment of confusion. Towards the end, Levine grew animated increasingly animated. Leaning off his stool, with one leg on the ground, he brought the monumental work to a shattering close.

Levine shows no signs of giving up concert performances of underplayed operas anytime soon. In February, the BSO will be back at Carnegie for Berlioz’s baffling and complex La Damnation de Faust. This time, minus a popular accompanying symphony.