Above: composer Pietro Mascagni
Tuesday February 23rd, 2016 - Having looked at photos and video clips of the Met's current productions of CAV and PAG, I had no desire to see a performance of the famed double bill in such settings. But I do love both operas, and so I opted for a score desk this evening. I knew in advance I would be leaving after CAV. The combination of Barbara Frittoli and Marco Berti in PAG didn't appeal to me much, and though I would have liked to have heard George Gagnidze's Prologo, that would have meant enduring a Gelb-intermission. So it was CAV and then a casa, a casa, amici.
The Met has never felt emptier than it did tonight; I've seen some very sparse audiences in the last two or three seasons, but this was really depressing. To be sure, it was a star-less night; and ticket prices are high. But even on middling nights, the 'affordable' upper tiers of the House used to be reasonably full. Tonight, only a handful of people were sitting in the Balcony box and Family Circle box sections which are normally fully occupied by hard-core opera lovers. At the end of CAV, there was just barely sufficient applause to get the curtain back up for the bows.
The reasons for the decline in attendance have been discussed at length on other sites; suffice it to say that The Met seems to be committing a slow suicide, and that no one seems to be doing an intervention.
Liudmyla Monastyrska sang a good Tosca earlier this season, and it was to hear her Santuzza that I chose to go tonight. Tosca suits her better, or so it seems to me. In Santuzza's music we are accustomed to an earthier, more chest-resonant sound than Ms. Monastyrska brought to the music of the hapless outcast. But she sang tonight with a fine sense of dynamic variety, and did some really nice lyrical singing in passages like "No, no Turiddu..." in her duet with the tenor and - even more expressively - at "Turiddu mi tolsi..." in the duet with Alfio. Her top notes are bright and house-filling, but with hints of a widening vibrato. In the curse, Ms. Monastyrska was convincing though without the deadly declamatory venom of a Simionato or a Cossotto.
Brazilian tenor Ricardo Tamura, much maligned last season when he stepped in as Don Carlo for an ailing colleague while himself being under-the-weather, did a reasonable job as Turiddu tonight. He sounded throaty and a bit quavery in the offstage serenade, but once onstage he fared better. The singing is idiomatic, and he kept pace with the soprano in their big duet. Later, as he pleaded with Alfio to consider Santuzza's fate if he, Turiddu, is killed, Tamura was very persuasive.
The most idiomatic and vocally satisfying performance tonight came from baritone Ambrogio Maestri; his Alfio has the right vocal swagger and his top notes were full, ripe, and thrilling. My score refers Lola's little entrance song as "Lola's Ditty"; Ginger Costa-Jackson did a good job with it, throwing in some nice chesty insinuations along the way as she chided Santuzza. It's always good to have Jane Bunnell in a cast. I've always liked her, and I still do.
Fabio Luisi's conducting was the evening's biggest asset: his pacing was excellent, with an effective build-up to the Easter Hymn, and he refused to over-cook the famous Intermezzo, instead making it a touching musical statement. Throughout the evening, Luisi brought out little nuances in the score that hadn't previously registered with me, and he maintained an alert balance between voices and orchestra, never swamping his singers.
Kudos to the Met chorus, who made the Easter Hymn the musical focus of the evening. This great chorale always moves me in its expression of the simple and direct faith of the common folk. Tonight it reminded me yet again of how the great religions have been hi-jacked and politicized in recent years. These days, my own mother's piety and kind-heartedness would be thought too mushy and weak. I often wonder what she would think of the current situation.
Metropolitan Opera House
February 23rd, 2016
CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA
Pietro Mascagni
Santuzza................Liudmyla Monastryska
Turiddu.................Ricardo Tamura
Lola....................Ginger Costa-Jackson
Alfio...................Ambrogio Maestri
Mamma Lucia.............Jane Bunnell
Peasant.................Andrea Coleman
Conductor...............Fabio Luisi