How about taking the most meta-opera out there and making it even more self-referential? That’s the approach director Robert Carsen took when his vision of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos unfurled in February at Deutsche Oper Berlin (seen Feb. 19). This fascinating, frustrating, genre-bending work never seems quite certain about itself: the DOB transplant of this production, originally seen last year at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, boasted a cast that far outshone the staging.

Lithuanian soprano Violeta Urmana fit nicely into the shoes of the strutting diva of the title role. This is a role she has sung previously at the Met. At DOB, her performance was distinguished by crystalline clarity and effortless volume. Urmana’s bright-hued timbre gave way to darker shades as the evening progressed, making for a richer, more involved performance, a highlight of which was a full-throttle account of the gently ebbing “Es gibt ein Reich.”

Ruxandra Donose made an even stronger impression as the impetuous Composer, singing with undeniable ardor, an attractively thick texture and a velvety low range, as in her compelling account of “Sein wir wieder gut.” The Zerbinetta of Jane Archibald was alternately reverent and feisty, as in her quasi-love duet with the Composer. And even if the massive orchestral force occasionally drowned her out, she tore through her vocally punishing role with obvious relish and assurance, especially in the extensive coloratura writing. She nearly stole the show with her “Grossmächtige Prinzessin,” which was here elaborately choreographed with various paramours popping out of pianos that glided comically across the stage.

As in most Strauss, the men of Ariadne play a decidedly supporting role. That said, Roberto Saccà was indeed godlike as Bacchus, singing with Italianate grace (and a pinch of schmaltz) that made the opera’s close more fitting and dramatically convincing. Met veteran Lenus Carlson was in fine form as the levelheaded Music Teacher. And baritone Simon Pauly did solid work as Harlequin, particularly in the tuneful “Lieben, Hassen, Hoffen, Zagen.”

Carsen, one of Europe’s busiest directors, is probably best known to U.S. audiences for his striking Met production of Eugene Onegin. In this Ariadne, he tried so constantly to break through the fourth wall that most of his attempts at abstraction ended up seeming bland.

The house lights stayed on for the better part of the Prologue, and various characters walked through the audience to make their entrances. The production, which featured sets by Peter Pabst and costumes by Falk Bauer, switched awkwardly between elegance and absurdity, an obvious mirror of the tension in the score between opera seria and commedia dell’arte. The self-referential elements — the large mirrors that reflected the audience, the exposed lighting and the completely bare stage that the Composer walked onto at the end of the opera, to be greeted by the applause of the cast — quickly grew tiresome. One bright spot was Marco Santi’s smart and edgy choreography, which livened things immeasurably, especially in the otherwise static Act II.

The evening’s maestro, Jacques Lacombe, had difficulty giving shape to the sinewy, often manic Prologue, the backstage drama that occupies the work’s first half. The directorial shenanigans did much to reinforce an impression of general havoc onstage and in the pit. Lacombe took much firmer command of his musicians with the opera within an opera, starting with a delicate account of the tortuous G-minor overture and not letting up until the glittering apotheosis of the closing bars.

Richard Strauss’s Salome is an opera as emotionally unhinged as it is daringly modern. So one was interested to see what Achim Freyer, the controversial visionary behind Los Angeles Opera’s new production of the Ring cycle, would do to Strauss’s debauched heroine when Deutsche Oper Berlin revived his 2003 production in early February. The production images available on the company’s website promised that the evening would have its share of strangeness, and they probably had something to do with the poor attendance (seen Feb. 1).

I too had my reservations about what a Freyer Salome would look like, especially after seeing his recent Eugene Onegin at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden — a visually dazzling production that quickly ran out of ideas. With Salome, I was afraid that Freyer’s extreme distancing techniques would preclude genuine involvement in the relentless drama of the music. But it was precisely this quality about Salome that enabled Freyer’s spin to work. The high drama and breathless pace of a score tailored to suit a preexisting play were well served by this oddball, kooky production. With a staging concerned more with interpretation than with mere illustration, this Salome did not waste time over details of decor —the color of the heroine’s veils, the verisimilitude of the severed head — and thus spoke for itself.

Freyer’s Salome left the music exposed and pure, placing more demands than usual on the soprano who dares to take on this killer role. For this revival, the ravishing Manuela Uhl took up the challenge. Uhl — who obviously had no intention of being erased by the abstract, cartoonish sensibilities of this revival — created a Salome who was raw, energetic and passionate. She has an exciting, powerful voice and enough stamina to make it to the end of this punishing role. Her singing was fresh and convincing, if not always the picture of accuracy. Uhl ducked some high notes and decided to forgo some of the coloratura ornamentation, but her biggest problems were a weak low range — she often resorted to speaking — and exposed passaggio. She also pounced on her lines with an eagerness that, though not always in synch with the music, made for thrilling drama. Despite the shortcomings of her performance, the bulk of Strauss’s searing music sounded wondrous and convincing in her mouth, and aside from rough patches, her voice rang out with incredible volume and clarity from start to finish.

Uhl was supported by highly capable colleagues. Foremost among them was American baritone Alan Titus, the intense, booming Jochanaan. Chris Merritt, a lyric tenor with a background in Rossini operas, made an unexpectedly great Herodes, bringing out his character’s buffoonery and perversion with occasional Italianate embellishments. As his cutthroat wife Herodias, Hanna Schwarz sang like an avenging fury. Clemens Bieber — a DOB ensemble member — was a sympathetic and convincing Narraboth, declaiming his soaring, urgent lines with both finesse and an appealing ruggedness. The remaining roles were perfectly cast, from the Page of Julia Benzinger on down to the two Nazarenes.

The staging was as baffling as it was entrancing. The set appeared to have materialized out of a David Lynch dream sequence and resembled some kind of industrial carnival funhouse, with its numbered yellow factory doors and circus-like stage area. Much of the acting consisted of heightened, repeated gestures that took on a ritualistic aspect. This was complemented by the extremely clownish Expressionist makeup. The costumes were likewise irreverent and colorful, consisting of hand-drawn pinstriped suits and incorporating a childish variety of props, such as balloons for breasts, funnels and sand buckets for hats. One of the best touches was to number each of the Jews “1″ through “5.” All this added a magical, nursery-like feel to the narrative. The one misstep was an underwhelming dance of the seven veils, which was so confused and pedestrian that one wondered whether Freyer meant it as a comment on the evidently weaker quality of that music in comparison to the rest of the score.

At the helm of the massive orchestral force was Ulf Schirmer, whose account of the score mounted steadily in intensity, from the opening clarinet scale to the bone-crushing chords that describe Salome’s execution. In between, he was sensitive to the profusion of motifs and the score’s shimmering, exotic detail.

With an extensive Strauss celebration underway at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper unter den Linden got in on the action in February with a sumptuously sung revival of Nicolas Brieger’s production of Der Rosenkavalier, conducted by Asher Fisch (seen Feb. 21).

The most compelling reason to see this revival was the role debut of Magdalena Kožená as Octavian. This is a character that fits the Czech mezzo like a glove: her performance was an all-around revelation. She delivered her opening lines, “Wie du warst, wie du bist!” in soft, luminous notes of heartbreaking beauty. She matched the impassioned horns effortlessly, which is no small feat. Her richly textured voice communicated a dramatic range from ardor to impetuousness to despair and devotion. Every phrase was carefully thought out, with an exciting deployment of rubato providing added force to the fluency of her singing, which was free of any breaks or gasps for air. This revival also capitalized on the androgynous aspect of Kožená’s beauty, which only added to the completeness of the incarnation.

Every bit as assured was the Marschallin of Angela Denoke, whose tragically noble performance reminded us that Princess Marie Thérèse is the most complex character in the opera. Denoke was here both more aristocratic and more nuanced than in her 2005 Rosenkavalier appearances at the Met, which marked her debut with that company. A pitch-perfect companion to Kozená, Denoke wavered between the earthy and the ethereal, placing equal value on the mellifluous and dramatic aspects of her performance. Her full yet silky voice contained both laughter and repressed sorrow.

Bass Peter Rose, another Met veteran, was vocally persuasive and perversely charming as Baron Ochs. He switched effortlessly among the duets, waltzes and arioso that this difficult character is required to pull off. All in all, he was so rudely charming that he threatened to tip the opera in his favor.

Sylvia Schwartz suffered from a problem common to most Sophies — being upstaged by the titanic forces of her costars. Her light, pretty voice was far from slight, but it was still obscured in her Act II duet with Octavian and in the transcendent Act III trio.

The supporting roles were judiciously cast, with Paul O’Neill making a memorable impression as the Italian Tenor. Curiously, O’Neill came out in a wheelchair to sing “Di rigori armato” with requisite lyricism and fervor that won him peals of spontaneous applause.

The audience was less kind to conductor Asher Fisch, who took his bow amid persistent boos. Apparently, Berlin felt cheated by a performance that consciously sacrificed much of the work’s Viennese elegance for a courser, darker interpretation. From the weighty, muscular tempo of the opening bars and the lusty strings and winds somewhat obscured by the horns, it was clear that Fisch was intent on taking things in a different direction.

Brieger’s elegant production matched the refinement and taste on display in the singing. The direct, striking design brought to mind both Ruth Berghaus and Gilbert Defloe. The versatile horseshoe-shaped set morphed ingeniously from the decaying elegance of the Marschallin’s bedroom to the bourgeois trappings of the Faninal residence to the seedy inn of the closing act. The only false note the production struck was in the jumbled chaos of the Baron’s aborted seduction.

A. J. GOLDMANN

I am forever being told by veteran opera-lovers, “They don’t sing like they used to.” Perhaps this explains why certain works in the repertoire have lost their places of prominence or have been eliminated altogether: we simply no longer have the voices required to do them justice. Gounod’s Faust is hardly an obscure work, but the rate at which it is staged today is paltry when compared to the popularity it enjoyed before World War II. So it was thrilling (and transporting) to see a Faust at the Berlin Staatsoper unter den Linden so expertly sung that one understood the seductive spell it cast over audiences in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries (seen Feb. 22).

For its new production, the Staatsoper enlisted the talents of superb singers whose bravura performances cut through the dimmer inspirations of director Karsten Wiegand’s uneven staging.

Before the curtain went up, an announcement was made that two cast members, Charles Castronovo, the Faust, and Roman Trekel, the Valentin, would be singing despite colds. If anything, this inauspicious news only made the ensuing three and a half hours more impressive and thrilling. Castronovo, a New York-born lyric tenor, was somewhat throaty in the opening scene, with hesitant low notes. He was a bit off in the reprise of “A moi les plaisirs” with the devil, but he warmed up quickly. Before long, he was singing with heroic and darkly lacquered tones. He gasped certain phrases out suspensefully and projected others with an otherworldly quiver.

The sublime Russian soprano Marina Poplavskaya, best known to New York audiences for her performance as Natasha in the 2007 Met revival of Prokofiev’s War and Peace, was cast in the punishing role of Marguerite: she sang with fierce determination and unrelenting brazenness. It was a sensational performance, but one also worried about the toll that singing like that might take on the young soprano’s voice. She delivered an expressive and bouncy “Il était un roi de Thule” in a clear, restrained manner, then made a fluid transition to a wildly coquettish “Je ris de me voir si belle,” with delicious coloratura technique and an abundance of expressive muscle. It was but one climax in a performance with too many to highlights to enumerate.

As Méphistophélès, Réne Pape was — forgive the sacrilegious locution — absolutely godlike. He snickered and jeered though this wonderfully wicked role and let his character’s evil seep through most effectively in the quieter moments. His voice sounded effortlessly big, smoothly seductive and appropriately serpentine.

Despite his cold, Trekel struck the right tone as Valentin, his complex, robust voice communicating his character’s brotherly concern — as in his deeply felt “Avant de quitter ces lieux” — but also encompassing the rage and venom of Act IV. Silvia de la Muela sang Siébel with appropriate ardor and conviction.

Wiegand, a young German stage director who made his debut at the Staatsoper in 2006 with Maria Stuarda, provided an infuriatingly garish and amateurish Act I, setting the action at a raucous casino/house party. The noisy thrashing around brought to mind the rave that Calixto Bieito choreographed for his atrocious 2006 production of Wozzeck in Barcelona.

The casino set was moved away for Act II, which unfolded on a bare stage surrounded by silver-leafed walls — minimal yet all-around exquisite setting for this act that made the work uncommonly fluid by eliminating the need for clunky transitions between various set pieces. During Marguerite’s ascension, the walls lifted majestically to reveal the chorus seated at a heavenly banquet attired in tuxedos and cocktail dresses.

The stomach-churning touches of Wiegand’s production — Marguerite dashed her newborn’s brains against the wall and, in the end, slashed her own throat with a brooch — provided a jolting dose of realism to the otherwise abstract staging.

The version used for this production made the traditional cuts of the ballet and the Walpurgisnacht scene but included sporadic dialogue. Alain Altinoglu’s conducting was sweeping and sensitive. He made some daring decisions, slowing down to an almost dangerous level during the more introspective arias and favoring an all-around expansive approach that added an extra twenty minutes to the show’s running time. But then again, it’s hard to have too much of a good thing.

Reviews originally published at Operanews.com

 
Manon Lescaut

BERLIN — Manon Lescaut, Deutsche Oper Berlin, 10/22/08

In the two months since the Berlin opera season got underway, there has been only a modest showing of big international names: Berlin’s three opera houses seem to be relying more than usual on their ensemble members. Still, there has been some star power in evidence here: the most impressive coupling so far has been Neil Shicoff and Cristina Gallardo-Domâs, who sang in Deutsche Oper Berlin’s four-performance revival of Gilbert Deflo’s 2004 production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (seen October 22).

Deflo’s staging is an odd mix of historical accuracy and minimalism: much of the visual excitement comes courtesy of costume designer William Orlandi (also responsible for the sets). In particular, the eighteenth-century wardrobe of the debauched aristocracy — including the opera’s antagonist, Geronte — is straight out of Laclos or Sade: the representatives of the ancien régime are represented as a bunch of lecherous clowns with poodle wigs and painted faces. Among the highlights of this production is the beautiful and macabre procession of fallen women in Act III; equally striking is the desert that becomes both Manon and des Grieux’s tomb, here represented by a small cluster of red rocks in the middle of a white expanse.

But as is the case in any revival of a popular work, the main issue here was the singing. Gallardo-Domâs and Shicoff had dynamic onstage chemistry and provided most of the evening’s vocal fireworks. Gallardo-Domâs, the Chilean soprano known for her portrayals of Puccini’s heroines, gave a wrenching performance every bit as compelling as her star turn in Anthony Minghella’s 2006 production of Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera. Her idiosyncratic, distinctive voice takes some getting used to, but here it served her well. Aside from a few outbursts that were too big, her singing seemed effortlessly supple. At times her quivery, emotion-tinged singing had a pop quality, but she managed to curb her more diva-like tendencies: her opening aria, “Vedete, io son fedele” sounded both noble and vulnerable.

Her des Grieux did not make such a striking first impression. Now fifty-nine years old, Shicoff showed his age, even more so alongside the wonderful (and young) tenor Michael Spyres, who was singing Edmondo. Shicoff is still capable of producing a beautiful tone, but his voice has lost some of its former agility: there was a labored quality to Act I’s “Tra voi, belle,” and the orchestra sometimes swallowed him whole. Early in the performance, Shicoff’s transitions between registers were uneasy, and he landed some high notes weakly. While Gallardo-Domâs tore through passages with near-reckless abandon, Shicoff seemed keen to slow things down, taking his arias with graceful maturity.

Over the course of the evening, however, Shicoff achieved parity with his costar. By Act III he sounded every bit as impassioned in his lyric urgency as in his famed accounts of Don José and Lenski. Both artists delivered a shattering Act IV that combined remarkably brazen singing with convincing acting: Gallardo-Domâs forced high notes out almost defiantly as she sputtered to her death.

Massimo Cavalletti was a smoothly powerful Lescaut; Stephen Bronk brought a wonderfully villainous tinge to the cunning Geronte de Ravoir.

In the pit, Patrik Ringborg led a spirited — if at times oversaturated — account of Puccini’s first popular score. The famous Act III intermezzo was especially accomplished in its balanced lushness.

A. J. GOLDMANN

BERLIN — Eugene Onegin, Staatsoper unter den Linden, 9/27/08

Freyer’s Staatsoper Berlin Onegin, with Villazón, Rügamer and Samuil © Monika Rittershaus 2008

Expectations ran high for the first new production of the season at Staatsoper unter den Linden — Tchaikovsky’s beloved Eugene Onegin, directed and designed by Achim Freyer and conducted by Daniel Barenboim (seen Sept. 27). Freyer, a Berlin native, is one of modern Germany’s most respected stage artists: perhaps best known in the U.S. for his Stuttgart stagings of the Philip Glass operas Satyagraha, Akhnaten and Einstein on the Beach in the 1980s, Freyer will take on the company premiere of Wagner’s Ring for Los Angeles Opera, beginning with Das Rheingold in February 2009. The Freyer Onegin was a collaborative effort by members of the Freyer Ensemble, the director’s workshop, which includes singers, dancers, acrobats, artists and directors. Freyer, who will turn seventy-five next year, was a student of Bertolt Brecht; his Onegin was in many ways a Brechtian take on commedia dell’arte — as if Jean Cocteau and Robert Wilson were to channel the spirit of Edward Gorey.

Absurd, abstract and occasionally beautiful, this production had some good ideas, but not nearly enough to sustain the entire evening. Most of the principal cast was onstage constantly, moving like zombies in clown-like makeup that matched the black-and-white color scheme. The only bursts of color came from garish neon lighting, most memorably for a macabre (and confusing) tableau that reappeared at climactic moments. Working with few props (mostly chairs), the actors pantomimed or performed intricate, ritualistic gestures, sometimes exiting and reentering in the middle of their scenes. It was oddly compelling in some places, irritating in others. After the famous Act I letter scene, someone shouted out from the balcony “Can we have a little action please? This is a drag,” which prompted a minute’s worth of chuckles, rebukes and whispers of agreement before the performance could continue.

Odd as the production was, it was also visually arresting: if it did not provide the optimal setting for Staatsoper’s impressive lineup of vocal talent, it established with integrity a striking — and not overly distracting — mise en scène. For the leads, Staatsoper opted to showcase three of its local favorites and import another star of international caliber. The evening’s Tatiana was Anna Samuil, the young Russian soprano who has been a soloist with the company since the 2004–05 season; she previously sang the role under Barenboim’s direction at the 2007 Salzburg Festival (see Video, p. 72). Samuil lent human warmth to a highly intellectual — one might say chilly — staging. Hers is a powerful, textured voice that evidently can’t really be molded into sounding delicate or youthful: her vibrato-heavy, urgent sound wreaks havoc with quiet, meditative moments. She took the letter scene slowly, her performance restrained and — in spots — even leisurely; when needed, she sounded brazen and heroic but also a little fierce. These qualities served her well in the final duet, in which Tatiana spurns the remorseful Onegin. Samuil’s Onegin was Staatsoper regular Roman Trekel, whose costume and stylized movements made him look like a marionette butler. He sang and acted a solid and occasionally sinister account of Tchaikovsky’s anti-hero, despite some muffled-sounding crooning in the lower part of his range.

Rolando Villazón provided world-class glamour and first-rate singing as the doomed Lenski. Like those of the rest of the cast, Villazón’s movements were severely constrained by the tight choreography, but the tenor acted so convincingly with his voice that it hardly mattered. In his early scenes with Olga, Villazón brimmed with youthful ardor; his fit of jealousy at Tatiana’s name-day party was white-hot and agonized. He capped his performance with an intensely delivered, unforgettable “Kuda, kuda, kuda vi udalilis.” As befitted the somewhat impenetrable logic of this production, Lenski walked around the stage long after his death: Villazón resembled not so much a ghost as a haunted puppet.

In a tall top hat and seriously exaggerated moustache, the luxuriously cast René Pape — a Staatsoper regular since 1988 — was completely unrecognizable as Prince Gremin. Only when he opened his mouth could one identify him by his unmistakably sonorous, mellow voice, here put to magnificent use in Gremin’s one brief scene.

In other roles, Maria Gortsevskaya, a Russian mezzo with a husky voice, made a feisty, sensual Olga. Margarita Nekrasova was affecting as Tatiana’s nurse, Filippyevna. Katharina Kammerloher’s sympathetic Larina rounded out the female cast nicely. The Triquet of Stephan Rügamer was light, breezy and utterly at home in this storybook world of puppets and pantomime.

Barenboim and the Staatskapelle gave a lushly Romantic account of the score, making it sound by turns majestic, tragic and pompous. Lenski and Onegin’s entrance, marked by a downward flight of notes in the cellos and double basses, was especially furious; the opening of the third scene, with its sustained horns and darting strings, was slowed to a near-amble. The sizable chorus sang from the back of the stage, while the principals posed and the Freyer Ensemble cavorted.

A. J. GOLDMANN

Why was the Don Giovanni unveiled in mid-December at Staatsoper Unter den Linden — conducted by Daniel Barenboim with the commanding René Pape in the title role — such a bore? An insipid, dull staging by the house’s artistic director, Peter Mussbach, shared the blame with Barenboim’s slow, ponderous conducting, which made for a fussy, airless performance (seen Dec. 15).

Mussbach’s abstract production, a coproduction with La Scala, was met with boos. While Mussbach’s uninspired visuals — a one-dimensional set consisting of two black partitions that opened, closed and rotated to facilitate entrances and exits — indicated a lack of ideas, Barenboim seemed to have far too many up his sleeve: he tried his damnedest to bring out different qualities in the music, aria by aria and ensemble by ensemble, at the expense of presenting the work as any kind of organic whole.

Things got off to a promising start with an expansive overture. The trouble started when the curtain rose on Leporello (Hanno Müller-Brachmann), who garbled words and even cracked a little in his “Notte e giorno faticar,” followed by a trio with audibly out-of-sync principals. Müller-Brachmann improved greatly in time for the catalogue aria. Luckily, given the languid pace of Barenboim’s conducting, the bass-baritone was prepared to meet the challenge of the long, slow crescendo that brought the number to a close.

René Pape sang majestically. His champagne aria was brazen, robust, dramatically and vocally assured. His effortlessly expansive voice, with its great tonal and expressive range, is reminiscent at moments of Fischer-Dieskau in its soft and creamy character. Even Pape’s whispers were musical. One of the best moments came when, under the cloak of night, master and servant swapped costumes. One of the opera’s most implausible episodes was here made believable, thanks to the marvelous impersonations Pape and Müller-Brachmann did of one another.

Even with the luxurious musical pacing, the Donna Anna of Anna Samuil was too legato and too weighty: all evening long, she channeled Wagnerian pomp into an otherwise technically accomplished performance. The Elvira of Annette Dasch came zipping in on a white Vespa, with a matching umbrella. With Barenboim’s slowed-down tempo, her lyrical “Ah! chi mi dice mai” was more suited to a weepy Puccini heroine than to a vengeful opera-seria character, although “Ah, fuggi il traditor” was marked by welcome refinement and crispness. In Act II, she sang an impassioned “Mi tradì” while completely prone. Her performance was earthy, visceral and riveting, though certainly not to all tastes.

Despite his vampire-ish costume, Pavol Breslik made a fiercely magnetic Ottavio. His controlled, rapturous “Dalla sua pace” was the highlight of a long Act I. The Masetto of Arttu Kataja was a spiky-haired kid who made his entrance playing air-guitar. During “Batti, batti,” he flirted with some bridesmaids. Sylvia Schwartz was a suitably petite and coquettish Zerlina. Her voice was supple if somewhat rough around the edges. While her singing was tentative in “Là ci darem la mano,” she made up for it later by skillfully ornamenting her “Vedrai, carino.” Christof Fischesser was a booming Commendatore, but the silver body-paint he was lacquered with made him look like the Tin Man — an unintended touch of comedy in a long, humorless evening.

A.J. GOLDMANN

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.