Above: Michael Volle as Barak takes a bow
~ Author: Oberon
Saturday December 7th, 2024 matinee - I'll never forget the first time I heard any music from Richard Strauss's DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN ("The Woman Without a Shadow") It was in the late summer of 1966; I was on my very first solo trip to NYC, and I had joined the ticket line for the opening weeks of the Metropolitan Opera's new home at Lincoln Center, where the Company would (finally) be giving the Met premiere of the Strauss fantasy opera, some 47 years after its world premiere at Vienna.
FRAU was in rehearsal in the weeks leading up to the premiere; a stellar cast had been assembled: Leonie Rysanek, Christa Ludwig, Irene Dalis, James King, and Walter Berry would be singing the leading roles, with Karl Böhm on the podium.
On my second day on the line, a wave of excitement swept down the line of the hundreds of people camped out along the north side of the opera house: Leonie Rysanek had been spotted walking across the plaza toward the theatre's main entrance. The crowd surged onto the plaza, everyone rushing to greet the celebrated diva. In a panic, Leonie signaled to the security guards positioned just inside the lobby. They emerged and cleared a path for her thru the excited fans. Once safely inside, the soprano turned and waved to us.
As twilight came, I started hearing the sound of a soprano voice singing very high. Silence fell all along the line: the voice seemed familiar, but not the music. The word spread: one of the half-dozen "senior" Met fans who were 'representing' the fans in dealing with the Met's security and staff had been allowed in to a FRAU run-thru. Incredibly, he somehow managed to record about a minute of Leonie singing the Empress's Fountain Scene from Act III of the opera. (This would have been extremely difficult to achieve, since in those days it was not just a matter of holding a cellphone in your palm and hitting 'record'; he would have had to have smuggled in a concealed cassette recorder and kept the mike hidden).
Today, seated at my score desk and waiting for the performance to start, all this came back to me as the Met musicians ran thru portions of their parts in the Strauss score they were about to play. Who had made that brief recording? Was he still alive? Had he kept the tape as a document of an exciting chapter in the Met's history? We'll never know.
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But, enough nostalgia.
This year's FRAU revival had been originally planned for an earlier season, but the pandemic had squashed the idea; in the interim, some roles had been re-cast, but with less-than-promising possibilities for success - I'd been skeptical (rightly, as it turned out) of some of the singers who are now doing these roles. The vocal writing is fiendishly demanding. Also, the work needs a first class opera conductor, one who can draw thrilling playing from the orchestra, whilst keeping the music transparent and not encroaching on the voices.
There was a delay in opening the auditorium (always a bad sign) and it turned out that there was a cast change, but not one that I'd hoped for: Isaachah Savage would be singing the role of the Emperor, replacing Russell Thomas; Russell had received rave reviews from fans on the various opera sites after opening night, and I was especially keen to hear him in this music. By the end of the afternoon, I was wondering if he'd sung himself out at the second show, trying to compete with the orchestral onslaughts that Yannick Nézet-Séguin was dealing out from the podium.
It was the conducting today that often reduced Strauss's magnificent score to a simple noise fest. Having heard this opera conducted in the House by Karl Böhm, Christof Perick, Christian Thielemann, Philippe Auguin, and Vladmir Jurowski, Yannick Nezet-Seguin's take on the masterpiece was particularly disappointing, though not unexpected. Strauss provides ample opportunity for "big and brassy" in the many passages of the opera in which no one is singing. But today, the voices were constantly being encroached upon or covered by the sonic waves coming from the pit. It was sad to experience these thoughtless indulgences in hyped-up volume in a score so rich with textures.
It was unusual to see that, by 12:45 PM, all the MET Orchestra musicians were seated in the pit; as a rule they come wandering in, one by one, right up til the time the houselights go down. The House was nearly full, far more so than at my earlier performances to date this season.
With the three thunderous repeats of the "Keikobad" motif, we were off. Ryan Speedo Green's voice sounded huge in the music of the Spirit Messenger, but Nina Stemme (who'd been listed for the Dyer's Wife when the revival was first being talked about, but was now doing the Nurse) sadly showed the toll that a career in such roles as Isolde, Turandot, and Elektra can take on tonal steadiness. Last season her Met Elektra was a sad affair: the voice sounded ravaged, short of breath, and iffy on the highest notes. An announcement that "seasonal allergies" had compromised her voice, and asking our indulgence, was made. Today, in the supposedly 'easier' role of the Nurse, Stemme sounded wobbly, with a sense of desperation on the highest notes. She did have some very good passages, but was inconsistent. I'd been hoping that Christine Goerke, whose 'a star is born' Dyer's Wife in 2013 turned her into the prima donna she deserved to be, would be the Nurse this time around...but, no such luck.
Mr. Savage (above) made a splendid impression in the Emperor's first scene, the voice full, warm, and house-filling. And Yannick did everything he could to support this singer who had saved the day with his handsome vocalism. But by the time the arduous second aria in Act II had arrived, the conductor was letting the orchestral volume rip. The tenor overcame this hurdle, but he should never have had to face a hurdle at all. Mr. Savage sang gloriously after being spared the Emperor's fate of being turned to stone in Act III, and his part in the final quartet was very finely done. He was heartily applauded at his bows.
The Empress now appears, in the form of Elza van den Heever. The soprano's voice shone, especially her top notes, which sailed clearly into the house; and she took the opera's climactic high-C early and let it glow. But the timbre of her voice is not distinctive, and when the top range was not in play, she was less persuasive. She's not a vocal colorist, which means her singing could sometimes sound rather ordinary. The Empress's spoken 'crisis' scene at the fountain (often cut...what was Strauss thinking, anyway?) became tedious after a while.
Lise Lindstrom, who I last heard here as a very impressive Turandot in 2015, has in the interim been singing the heaviest Wagner and Strauss roles all over the world. This afternoon, with Yannick's orchestra pounding away, even Ms. Lindstrom's sturdy volume reserves were often tested, and her upper range could turn strident. For all that, there was still something moving about her vocalism, and a more thoughtful conductor could have supported rather than contested her singing. Watching the bows, Lise remains a knockout beauty in terms of face and form.
The most compelling performance of the day came from the great Michael Volle as Barak. From first note to finale, this wonderful artist made the humble, loving, generous character come vividly to life. Mr. Volle constantly made me choke back tears as he created a Dyer who is the palpable center of the entire story. His pain at his wife's callous rejection was deeply moving in the quiet ending of Act I - as he listened to the trio of the Nightwatchmen extolling the joys of marital love - and his kindly care of his three handicapped brothers during the "party" in Act kept the Volle Barak at the center of it all.
The great Act III duet for Barak and his wife, sung unaware of one another's nearness in Keikobad's prison, is the heart of the opera; and here Mr. Volle reached the heavens with his gorgeously voiced "Mir anvertraut..." and the hushed beauty of his "Furchte dich nicht!"
At the end, all things resolved, and with his happiness now complete, Mr. Volle's Barak stepped forward the launch the final quartet with "Nun will ich jubeln!", the voice so powerful and assured, the sentiment so real. The other three singers, still having to contend with the deafening roar of the orchestra, stayed afloat whilst Mr. Volle, undaunted, sang with the surety of voice that makes him a great artist. He joins my pantheon of great Baraks - Walter Berry, Bernd Weikl, and Wolfgang Brendel - and reminded me yet again of how fortunate I have been - in these 60-plus years of opera-going - to have experienced such singers.
As the Guardian of the Threshold, Laura Wilde (who stepped in as Ellen Orford at the 2022 Met matinee of PETER GRIMES), sounded a bit like Ms. van den Heever; but even in this brief role, Ms. Wilde was hit with some of Yannick's sonic booms. Jessica Faselt was the Falcon, Thomas Capobianco, Aleksey Bogdanov, and Scott Conner a voicey trio of brothers, Ryan Capazzo a lyrical Jüngling, and Jeongcheol Cha, Paul Corona, and Brian Major an excellent trio of Watchmen. The fabulous contralto Ronnita Miller was not well-miked as the Alto Voice in the prison scene, but she still sounded super.
Special kudos to cellist Rafael Figueroa and concert-master David Chan (above) whose solos in Act II and Act III respectively were so movingly played. They rightfully joined the singers onstage during the bows.
I went to the stage door with the sole purpose of thanking Mr. Volle; he was extremely kind, and gave me a warm handshake. I came so close to saying "I love you!", and that's exactly what I was feeling.
So, despite the sabotage efforts of Y N-S, the glory of the Strauss score could not be dimmed. During the finale, as what longtime standee Eddie Smith used to call "bloopers" sounded from the brass, I was thinking with sympathy of all those spent lips.
I'm curious to see how the incoming Principal Guest Conductor Daniele Rustioni will fare at The Met. I already rate him much higher that Yannick, and he's way better looking, too.
~ Oberon