Above: Boris Kudlicka's set design for The Met's production of Bartok's BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE
Wednesday February 18th, 2015 - This pairing of 'short' operas by Tchaikovsky and Bartok at The Met didn't really work. IOLANTA is an awkward work: too short to stand alone but too long to be successfully coupled with another opera. BLUEBEARD, so intense musically and rather static dramatically, is best paired with something like Schoenberg's ERWARTUNG or Stravinsky's OEDIPUS REX. Aside from the musical mismatch, the evening was further spoilt by an endless intermission.
Tchaikovsky's IOLANTA is full of nice melodies and is perfectly palatable but at no point do we feel connected to the story or the characters as we do with ONEGIN or PIQUE-DAME. The production is gloomy, with a central 'box' (Iolanta's bedroom) which periodically (and rather annoyingly) rotates. The stage direction was random and incoherent, the minor characters popping in and out, and then a big choral finale populated by men in waiters' aprons. Nothing made much sense, really.
Musically, IOLANTA was given a not-very-inspired reading by Pavel Smelkov. It took Anna Netrebko a while to warm up; her singing became more persuasive as the evening wore on. She was attractive to watch and did what she could dramatically with a limited character and a dreary production. Mzia Nioradze was a sturdily-sung Marta. Among the male roles, Matt Boehler stood out vocally as Bertrand. Neither Vladimir Chmelo (Ibn-Hakia) nor Alexei Tanovitski (King Rene) seemed to be Met-caliber singers, and Maxim Aniskin's Duke Robert was pleasant enough vocally though of smallish scale in the big House.
IOLANTA was in fact only saved by a superb performance as Vaudemont by Piotr Beczala. From the moment of his first entrance, the tenor's generous and appealing sound and his commanding stage presence lifted the clouds of tedious mediocrity that had settled over the scene. As his most Gedda-like vocally, Beczala seemed to enflame Ms. Netrebko and their big duet had a fine sense of triumph.
The House, which was quite full for the Tchaikovsky, thinned out a bit at intermission. Those who stayed for the Bartok were treated to an impressive musical performance thwarted to an extent by busy, awkward staging. Mr. Smelkov seemed more in his element here than in the Tchaikovsky; the orchestra played Bartok's gorgeous score for all it's worth, and that's saying a lot.
After the eerie, ominous spoken prologue, we enter Bluebeard's dark domain. Where we should see seven doors, we instead see an automatic garage door closing. Then begins the long conversation between Bluebeard and Judith which will end with her bound in permanent captivity with his other wives.
The staging did the two singers - Michaela Martens and Mikhail Petrenko - no favors; periodically they appeared - for no apparent reason - in an isolated 'cupboard' high up at extreme stage left while the central space was filled with the filmed image of a gaping elevator shaft (see photo at the top of this article). The opening of each each 'door' was staged as a series of odd vignettes. Nothing made much sense. The final scene was ugly and failed to project the sense of mystery that should hover over Judith's fate.
Both Ms. Martens and Mr. Petrenko were on fine vocal form, and both brought unusual warmth and unexpected lyricism to much of their music. They sang powerfully, the mezzo showing a large and expressive middle register and resonant lower notes, with the basso having both power and tonal beauty at his command.
At several points along the way, their singing seemed somewhat compromised by the staging; and never more so than in Judith's famous high-C. At this moment, the director placed the singer far upstage - almost on Amsterdam Avenue - and so although Ms. Martens nailed the note, she was too far back to crest the orchestra. I suspect it was staged this way as a covering device for the vocal unreliability of the production's earlier Judith, Nadja Michael.
But overall, Ms. Martens and Mr. Petrenko each made a distinctive vocal showing; and it was they, the Met orchestra, and Piotr Beczala's Vaudemont earlier in the performance that gave the evening its lustre and saved it from sinking into the murky depths. Attempts to show some kind of link between the two operas by means of certain stage effects proved unconvincing. The Bartok, especially, deserves so much better.
Metropolitan Opera House
February 18, 2015
IOLANTA
P I Tchaikovsky
Iolanta....................Anna Netrebko
Vaudémont..................Piotr Beczala
Robert.....................Maxim Aniskin
King René..................Alexei Tanovitski
Bertrand...................Matt Boehler
Alméric....................Keith Jameson
Ibn-Hakia..................Vladimir Chmelo
Marta......................Mzia Nioradze
Brigitte...................Katherine Whyte
Laura......................Cassandra Zoé Velasco
BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE
Béla Bartók
Judith.....................Michaela Martens
Bluebeard..................Mikhail Petrenko
Conductor..................Pavel Smelkov