Above: Dmitry Hvorostovsky and Sondra Radvanovsky
Tuesday April 28th, 2015 - For my final Met performance of the current season, Verdi's BALLO IN MASCHERA with probably the strongest overall cast of any opera produced at the Met this season. I felt no need to see the Met's mixed-bag, neither-here-nor-there production again, so I was back at my score desk. Of the twenty-plus performances I attended at the Met this season, most were experienced from score desks; there is less and less of a need to actually see what it happening onstage, so why spend the money on a 'room with a view'? And besides, I hardly ever stay to the end of anything thanks to the slow agony of the Gelb-length intermissions. Tonight, though, my two amusing friends Adi and Craig helped make the long breaks somewhat more tolerable.
Tonight's audience was one of the largest I've seen at the opera all season. The Met's always been a 'singers house'; the box office is voice-driven and has been since the days of de Reszke and Caruso. There was Flagstad, and Birgit and Franco; and there was Pav, and now there's Netrebko and Kaufmann. People come for the singing because that's what opera is all about.
The evening began with an announcement that James Levine would be replaced on the podium by John Keenan. This may have been a rather last-minute decision since Levine's special wheelchair platform was in place. Keenan is a very fine Wagner conductor, but in the Italian repertoire Joseph Colaneri would be my choice if Levine is ailing. Much of Act I tonight had an unkempt quality; the singers seemed to want different tempi than Keenan was offering them, and they tended to speed ahead, leaving the orchestra to catch up.
Piotr Beczala - superb in IOLANTA earlier in the season - sounded a bit tired in Act I. His opening aria was not smooth and the climactic top A-sharp was tight and veered above pitch. He began to settle in vocally at Ulrica's, though the (written) low notes in "Di tu se fedele" were clumsily handled - no one would have cared if he'd sung them up an octave. By the time he reached the great love duet, Beczala was sounding much more like his usual self, and his "Non sai tu che se l'anima mia" was particularly fine. Spurred on by his resplendent soprano, the Polish tenor invested the rest of the duet with vibrant, passionate singing.
As Ulrica, Dolora Zajick was exciting: the voice has its familiar amplitude and earthy chest notes intact and she also sang some beautiful piani, observing Verdi's markings. It's not her fault that the production idiotically calls for amplification of her deep call for "Silenzio!" at the end of her aria. Dolora's chest tones don't need artificial enhancement.
Heidi Stober was a serviceable Oscar; her highest notes could take on a brassy edge and overall she lacked vocal charm. Memories of Reri Grist, Roberta Peters, Judith Blegen, Lyubov Petrova, and Kathleen Kim kept getting in my ear, perhaps unfairly.
Dmitry Hvorostovsky as Count Anckarström was in splendid voice from note one, and his opening aria "Alla vita che t'arride" was beautifully phrased with a suave legato, the cadenza rising up to a majestically sustained high note. In the scene at the gallows (or rather - as this production places it - "in an abandoned warehouse...") the baritone was vividly involved, first as a loyal friend urging his king to flee and later as the shamed, betrayed husband.
Sondra Radvanovsky, who in 2013 gave us a truly impressive Norma at The Met, was - like the baritone - on top form. With a voice utterly distinctive and unlike any other, and with the seemingly innate ability to find the emotional core of any role she takes on, Radvanovsky has a quality of vocal glamour that makes her undoubtedly the most exciting soprano before the public today. What makes her all the more captivating is that, if a random note has a passing huskiness or isn't quite sounding as she wants it to, she's able to make pinpoint adjustments and forge ahead. This makes her singing interesting and keeps us on high alert, wondering what she'll do next. Thus she generates a kind of anticipatory excitement that is rare these days.
Launching Amelia's "Consentimi o signore' in the Act I trio, Sondra shows off the Verdian line of which she alone today seems true mistress. When we next meet her, she is out on her terrified search for the magical herb. Unfurling the grand recitative "Ecco l'orrido campo..." with instinctive dramatic accents, she draws us into Amelia's plight. The great aria that follows is a marvel of expressiveness (though I do wish she would eliminate the little simpering whimpers during the orchestral bridge...a pointless touch of verismo); and then terror seizes her and she goes momentarily mad before calming herself with the great prayerful ascent to the high-C. The ensuing cadenza was both highly emotional and superbly voiced.
In the love duet, with Beczala now vocally aflame, Sondra gave some of her most incredibly nuanced, sustained singing at "Ma tu, nobile..."- astounding control - before the two singers sailed on to the impetuous release of the duet's celebratory finale and ended on a joint high-C.
Amelia's husband unexpectedly appears to warn the king that his enemies are lurking; after Gustavo has fled (has Sondra ever contemplated taking a high-D at the end of the trio here? I've heard it done...), soprano and baritone kept the excitement level at fever pitch during the scene with the conspirators: page after page of Verdian drama marvelously voiced, ending with a rich high B-flat from the soprano as she is hauled off to be punished.
I hate the break in continuity here: ideally we would follow the couple home and the intensity level would suffer no letdown; instead we have another over-long intermission.
But the mood was quickly re-established when the curtain next rose: Hvorostovsky thundering and growling while Radvanovsky pleads for mercy. Now the evening reached a peak of vocal splendour as the soprano sang her wrenchingly poignant plea "Morro, ma prima in grazia..." Displaying a fascinating command of vocal colour and of dynamics that ranged from ravishing piani to gleaming forte, the soprano was in her greatest glory here, with a spectacular cadenza launched from a sublime piano C-flat before plunging into the heartfelt depths and resolving in a ravishingly sustained note of despair.
Hvorostovsky then seized the stage. In one of Verdi's most thrilling soliloquies, the character moves from fury to heartbreak. After the snarling anger of "Eri tu", Dima came to the heart of the matter: using his peerless legato and vast palette of dynamic shadings, he made "O dolcezze perdute, o memorie..." so affecting in its tragic lyricism before moving to a state of resignation and finishing on a gorgeously sustained final note. In the scene of the drawing of lots, Hvorostovsky capped his triumph with an exultant "Il mio nome! O giustizia del fato!" - "My name! O the justice of fate: revenge shall be mine!" His revenge will bring only remorse.
We left after this scene, taking with us the fresh memory of these two great singers - Radvanovsky and Hvorostovsky - having shown us why opera remains a vital force in our lives.
Metropolitan Opera House
April 28, 2015
UN BALLO IN MASCHERA
Giuseppe Verdi
Amelia.............................Sondra Radvanovsky
Riccardo (Gustavo III).............Piotr Beczala
Renato (Count Anckarström).........Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Ulrica (Madame Ulrica Arvidsson)...Dolora Zajick
Oscar..............................Heidi Stober
Samuel (Count Ribbing).............Keith Miller
Tom (Count Horn)...................David Crawford
Silvano (Cristiano)................Trevor Scheunemann
Judge..............................Mark Schowalter
Servant............................Scott Scully
Conductor..........................John Keenan