Saturday April 23rd, 2016 matinee - I went to this performance of OTELLO at The Met expressly to hear Hibla Gerzmava (above) as Desdemona. Feeling no need to see the production, I took a score desk. Since I could not see the stage, I missed a cast change that took place spontaneously between Acts III and IV.
Aleksandrs Antonenko started out strongly, seeming to be in better voice as Otello than at the earlier performance I had heard; but by the end of Act III he was taking stuff down an octave and speaking the lines. A substitute sang Act IV while Antonenko acted the role.
The cover, named Francesco Anile (above), sounded more Italianate and his vibrato was less prominent than Antonenko's; but since I was unaware of the change, I just thought - from what I was hearing - that Antonenko had gotten a second wind and was making a final push. A spokesperson for the Met came onstage before the curtain calls started to explain what had happened (this was also needed for the radio audience). Then Antonenko and Gerzmava bowed together...she seemed to be trying to console him...and finally Anile came out in jeans and sneakers with an old robe thrown over his shoulders.
Antonenko's uneven performance in the first half of the evening included a some really nice passages mixed in with the more effortful ones. But I wondered - as I had at the earlier performance I saw - whether he merited a new production (for an opening night) at The Met, considering his less-than-stellar vocalism. Since Domingo retired the role, only Johan Botha has been more than a serviceable Otello at The Met. Heppner, Galouzine, and Cura were variable, at best. Without a world-class exponent of the title-role around these days, new productions seem unwarranted.
Ms. Gerzmava's voice is beautifully 'present' in the big Met space. Her singing has a darkish glow, she phrases appealingly, and incorporates piano effects nicely, if rather sparingly (I kept hoping for more). A trace of sharpness was evident here and there, and the final A-flat of the Ave Maria would have been more effective if held just a bit longer.
As has sometimes happened before at The Met, the sound of voices from the lighting bay in the auditorium's ceiling ruined much of the Willow Song and Ave Maria; it was around the same time that a cellphone also went off.
All of the wonderful things about Željko Lučić - the authentic Met-sized voice, the uninhibited range, the dramatic nuances he brings to his singing - are undone by continuous problems of pitch. So many thrilling moments in Lučić's Iago today were offset by his seeming inability to control this serious defect.
Chad Shelton's Roderigo stood out - both in terms of voice and inflection - among the supporting cast today. Jennifer Johnson Cano (Emilia), Alexey Dolgov (Cassio), Jeff Mattsey (Montano), and Tyler Duncan (A Herald who is ready for bigger roles) all did well. And that beloved Wotan and Hans Sachs, James Morris, was warmly greeted at his curtain call in the role of Lodovico.
Conductor Adam Fischer set the opera on its way with a stimulatingly powerful treatment of the storm music; The Met chorus and orchestra were ship-shape all afternoon.
A fun article about Signor Anile's stepping in here.
Metropolitan Opera House
April 23rd, 2016 matinee
OTELLO
Giuseppe Verdi
Otello..................Aleksandrs Antonenko/Francesco Anile (Act IV)
Desdemona...............Hibla Gerzmava
Iago....................Zeljko Lucic
Emilia..................Jennifer Johnson Cano
Cassio..................Alexey Dolgov
Lodovico................James Morris
Montàno.................Jeff Mattsey
Roderigo................Chad Shelton
Herald..................Tyler Duncan
Conductor...............Adam Fischer