Turandot, Met Opera 10.6.2012

Maria Guleghina, the only person (so far) who could lure me into buying a ticket ($45!!!) to watch the opera from the standing room.  Somehow I messed up my tickets for this year and wasn't going to hear Guleghina's amazing new voice (at least as of last year in Nabucco) scream out this voice-killer; apparently the other soprano got most of these Turandots this year.  Guleghina delivered; so, bottom line, ears blasted and back distressed.  3 hours with two intermissions is a very long time to awkwardly stand leaning on a counter while trying not to be too tall for the annoying short people behind oneself.

Act I was, as always, kind of boring.  It takes way too long to get off, and then Puccini bombards us with the soprano aria, the tenor aria, the screaming of "Turandot," the smashing of the gong, and then suddenly the act is over.

Marco Berti sounded actually quite great in everything except the highest of high notes (where he struggled and sounded wimpy).  Hibla Gerzmava was excellent throughout except the most unfortunate screwing-up of Liu's most important note in the entire opera (the end of Signore, Ascolta).  The rest of the aria was great, but then she reached for the note and barely grabbed it, and had a brutal time hanging on to it.  It was kind of sad how 5 seconds of shaky singing deprived her of 50 seconds longer of applause.

Then, finally, after the brutally boring beginning of Act II with the three stupid guys that I can't stand, Guleghina arrived.  She seems to be back to her prior 100% volume but still in her new and improved fresh voice.  The scary aria was super fantastic.  The riddle scene was ridiculously fun.  And she even used chest anytime it got into the low notes.

Act III went off great for the first 5 minutes, then Nessum Dorma happened.  It wasn't a disaster, but it didn't do anything for the audience either.  Liu's death was acted and sung spectacularly well by Gerzmava.  James Morris sang a few crushingly sad lines after her death to remind us that he was in this opera, but wow, so well acted.

Guleghina managed the transition from psycho bitch to tender love spectacularly well.  And, like her 1 good Turandot performance from the last run, she sang the last note: "Amore" with surprising restraint and beauty. Overall, her pitch had some of its usual wobbly issues, but she definitely was not flat like she used to be.  Hoping she sticks around for a few more future seasons with her new and improved voice.

And, just for fun, apparently Trebs was in the audience.  How cool is it that Trebs actually goes to the opera for, you know, fun!

+Anna Netrebko

Met Opening Night 9/24/2012: L’Elisir d’Amore

Trebs! Trebs! Trebs!  Looking fetching in a red dress and boots.  And sometimes a weird top hat, why?  Who cares!  It’s Trebs and her ridiculously loud voice.  Even if you see only the 10 seconds where she screams “Ascolta” at the top of her lungs on a stratospheric high note followed by a bellowy foghorned chest note, you’ll go home happy.  The rest of the opera was fun too. 

To all those who say Trebs can’t do bel canto, seriously, give up your complaining, she  may be ditching the “ina” roles, but she’s not gonna let go.  Just enjoy it for what it is – loud, good, delicious fun.  Yes, we all want to hear her scream out Puccini and do Verdi (Trovatore, please!!!!), and want to hear her Onegin (she’s gonna kill the final scene).  But it doesn't mean she ain't not good at bel canto.  Sure, some fancy coloratura stuff isn’t quite perfect, but whatevs, it’s pretty thrilling.  And I’ll take annoying mugging over crap acting / park-and-bark any day.  It may be over the top, but at least it’s fun.  And this is a comedy.  So why not be having fun! 

Cheers for the Met dumping the old annoying production.  Yeck.  The new one, with its cheesy sets and weird top hats isn’t great, but it’s not offensive either.  Costumes were fine, nothing too strange.  The top hat was pointless fun, Polenzani’s ass looked unfortunately huge in his pants, while Mariusz Kweicen’s was strapped into wonderfully tight pants which unfortunately were completely blocked from sight all night by his stupid military jacket.  Trebs’s dress had a weird cut on one side that allowed her to constantly flash boot and leg, just for fun.

The best part of the production was the wheat fields, which moved around randomly during the final minutes of most scenes to reduce time to change to the next one. 

Singing-wise, everything was pretty great.  Trebs was fantastic throughout, screaming thrilling high notes at the end of all arias, duets, and ensembles.  Using her garbly choked chesty middle voice to great effect.  Some ravishing pianissimos to remind us how good Manon was last year.  And the freaky “ascolta” which reminded me how great Bolena was (the part where she goes psycho on Percy and says she can never see him again).

Mariusz looked hot as always, his character was way more of an asshole in this production, but it suited him.  Ambrogio Maestri (shout out to my new friend JC who was the person who puts him into his costume every day and got featured in the New Yorker recently), was fantastic and huge (in appearance, chemistry with Trebs, in voice, and in ability to make the audience laugh).  He actually sang his funny song, but brilliantly with this horrific whistle between his teeth. 

Matthew Polenzani looked great and slimmed down from last year's Traviata, (but for the unfortunate seat of his pants).  His singing gets better and better.  He almost stole the show with his ridiculous breathing and piano singing in his big aria – I’d prefer a louder lustier version of it, but he sang it fantastically in his own Mozarty way.

Definitely worth seeing.  Also a great cutesy date opera to bring fresh victims.  How could you not like Trebs dancing on tables?  Dunno if it’ll happen every night, but there was major clapping when the two finally made out.  It looked like serious making out from the Dress Circle Boxes… overall, highly recommended.  Prolly (If you don’t like this annoying word, blame MT for using it too much and influencing me) should go see the HD for this one, I imagine it will look and sound great!

+Anna Netrebko 

Anna Bolena, Washington National Opera, 9/15/2012

Ok, new Met season, new attempt to continue actually blogging.

 First up, not at the Met.  Anna Bolena at Washington National Opera.  Sonia Ganassi was Seymour, Oren Gradus Henry, Claudia Huckle was Smeton, and Shalva Mukeria was Percy.  Aaron Blake sang the small part of Hervey, which in this production, ended up with lots of non-singing stage-time, some weirdly homoerotic glancing at Henry, and an unusually large cod-piece. 

First, SondRad’s voice is too big for the Kennedy Center Opera House.  It was ridiculous.  Her voice towered/soared/erupted above all others.  She took every optional high option and then some, but always in strange places.  There were several options that most sopranos tend to take that but SondRad sang the written low note, but then in weird bits of cabalettas she was screaming what sounded like Cs and Ds all over the place.  Also, brilliant use of deep scary chest, often immediately after high screams.  Fantastic!

 The Act I finale was probably the best part, as expected.  Weirdly though, near the end when Anna has a very high note, then another high note, and ending on the high D, they cut this section so there was only one note and then the D; dunno why.  Couldn’t even hear Seymour in this scene.  I have a recording, and Seymour is barely there.  The whole ensemble is very unbalanced without Seymour being as loud as Anna.  La Rad dominated this ensemble, and while her D was kinda short, it was explosive and thrilling.

Percy was a mixed bag.  Huge voice, tons of excitement in the voice, ability to rip out high notes.  He took every high option up, the most appreciated one being the end of his big duet with Anna where he begs her to come back and she rejects him.  But he seemed kinda boring, acting wasn’t so great.  His big scene near the end was good, but not great.  And, by the way, Met seats are way way comfier; I was suffering near the end of this 3-hour epic.

Seymour was good, but too small-voiced.  Fantastic acting, great character she turned Seymour into, and fine whenever she wasn’t competing with an ensemble.  The duet between she and SondRad brought the best out the best in Seymour, but she still wasn’t loud enough to really compete.  Henry was pretty good, great actor, nice singing.  Poor guy cracked his very last note, but then he took a breath, and sang it again with great force and held it forever.  Poor guy though.

Then SondRad had her big scene.  Weird tempos; too fast during parts where she could have sung forever on one breath, and not enough push in psycho bits and cabalettas.  The big aria went very very well until she weirdly took a very high option right near the end, and almost screamed it out.  I don’t know if she just lost control and couldn’t scale it back, or if the same singing at the Met wouldn’t have been as offensively loud, but it definitely broke the spell and the applause were not what was deserved overall.  Further proof that half of opera clapping volume relates directly to screamy-highness-loudness-length of final note (or, in this case, how pianissimo can you go while still actually producing noise, and for how long?). 

Then, right in time for some psycho-rage in the final cabaletta, irritatingly, a stupid cage fell down around Sondrad and her terrible-looking chopped-off-hair to remind us she’s in a cell, which blocked everyone in the theater from getting a good look at her.  It was kinda cool how she desperately grabbed and the bars and flung herself around, but it would’ve been way nice to actually see her.  The final cabaletta was really quite spectacular.  She trilled the last note as if she were going to take it up to Eflat, but at the last second I think decided not to and went down, which kinda disappointed everyone I think.  Great performance overall, I think when she’s done a few more, with a better conductor, and in the giant Met barn, this will be a fantastic role for SondRad; can’t wait for when she brings it to NY!

Richard Tucker Gala 11/6/2011 (added thoughts)

I know, so so far behind on blogging.  I will catch up. I promise.  But since I left off on the Tucker Gala, and yesterday I got my oh-so-shady recording of it from my favorite oh-so-shady opera CD place which will remain un-named; just a few thoughts.

Obviously this recording was made by someone sitting at the back of the house. Such an interesting contrast between live, recorded amateur live, and recorded professionally and volume-compressed.  Live, especially in the crap seat I was in all the way up and most of the forward to the side, sometimes results in things that are epic and loud not cutting through orchestra, or a singer facing you and sounding like they have a megaphone. Professionally recording results in too much volume compression where a single voice singing pianissimo, and a full orchestra and chorus screaming, are pretty much the same volume. A live recording, however, from somewhere in the house, I think is the most accurate account of a performance as you can hear which voices disappear into the orchestra, which ones cut like lazer beams (Meade), which ones surround the house (Blythe), which ones tear and bludgeon through (Zajick), and which ones, even at piano, are the loudest human voices on earth (Guleghina).

Angela Meade sounds great. Her chests sound scarier than in house, her tops are great. Yes they’re screamy, but remember, in this aria she’s supposed an angry Italian woman wearing a breast plate like some psycho klingon warrior princess. She takes all the high options and all the low options. At one point she’s growling lower than most mezzos will go.  The trills are great, the runs are amazing, and she is LOUD. Screamy thin-soprano loud that cuts through orchestra loud. It’s pretty darned good. She sounds great in the Norma finale and rips out a really nice high D that was clearly aimed exactly away from me when I was in-house, because I barely heard it there and it is definitely knocked out of the park in the recording.

Stephanie Blythe confirms that she has the hugest sound ever that wraps around the house in spectacular fashion. Too bad I don’t know or like the aria.

The Nabucco tenor sounds better recorded than live in everything. Sounds amazing (as he did in house) in the verismo duet from Cavelleria Rusticana. La Zajick tears shit up though. Why anyone would laugh at her “Easter curse” is beyond me. Maybe they didn’t know she was about to foghorn and then chest the two most amazing notes of the night. Incredible!

Kauffman sounds great, as always. I’m starting to get really annoyed with his volume tricks though – we get it, you can sing quiet and loud and turn the volume knob up and down at will. Now stop and just sing, damnit! Singing to the extremely hot (she even sounds like she’s hot) Anita [---many letters---] in the Carmen finale, he finally stops thinking about singing and just sings. Having watched the La Scala video a zillion times and seeing him live in this at the Met, I would wager this might be better. Raw emotion bursts in every note. Great stuff.

And finally, to Guleghina.  Sorry Radvanovsky, but you’ve been beat. You’ve been out-radvanovsky’d in fact.  Guleghina sings Vissi D’arte even slower than you. She holds the crazy difficult notes, where most soprano’s are whelping out of key, longer than you. And while Radvanovsky has (her words, I agree) a Rolls Royce of a voice that she seemingly effortlessly drives, Guleghina overcomes her damaged, frayed, wobbly, loud, flawed, disgusting, voice, and sings almost the entire aria at an appropriate volume without wobble. Sure, the high B or whatever is in her usual mega voice, but it’s supposed to be.  The next two, done in one insanely long breath, are perfect and pianissimo. The ending doesn’t go flat or sharp. So Radvanovsky, you’d better fight for more Met roles, because in 2011 your (amazing) Tosca just can’t stand up to Guleghina’s ridiculously fearless Nabuccos (high Eb!!) and this single aria. Better luck next time.