On Music
GUREWITSCH, M. ANATOLE
On Music METROPOLnAN TREASURE-1 BY M. ANATOLE GUREWITSCH E JL^/very worthwhile artistic venture—if it lives long enough—eventually faces the same crisis: the departure of the spirit of...
...The Metropolitan Opera for years rested on its laurels...
...At the urging of his friend Rod-rigo, Marquis of Posa, the thwarted prince seeks new purpose in life by dedicating himself to the Flemish cause...
...On Music METROPOLnAN TREASURE-1 BY M. ANATOLE GUREWITSCH E JL^/very worthwhile artistic venture—if it lives long enough—eventually faces the same crisis: the departure of the spirit of enterprise as it becomes an "institution...
...Thanks to David Rosen and Andrew Porter, the textual history has been reconstructed, making possible a version that combines the composer's initial intentions (in the unrevised first act) with his last refinements (in the later, much revised ones...
...At three hours, a truncated Don Carlo can last forever...
...for all van Dam's mastery, the initially powerful image of descent dulls with repetition...
...and the sets (by Josef Svoboda), and costumes (by Jan Skal-icky) were bleak and unattractive...
...She sent her soprano soaring through the house with ease, and with a feverish edge that aptly heightened the character's mad visionary rapture...
...As Chrysothemis, Elek-tra's sweeter-natured sister, the Hungarian soprano Eva Marton sang with a passion that gave full value to every phrase and word...
...Plishka sang Daland, the Norwegian merchant captain who would gladly barter his daughter for riches...
...But the original vitality can be revived, thereby overcoming the burden of certified success...
...Regrettably, it was sung in Italian rather than in the original French...
...In the title role, Johanna Meier deputized radiantly for the indisposed Leontyne Price in five of the seven performances...
...he cast of Derfliegende Hollander—wherein Wagner restates his perpetual myth of damnation and redemption through love in the context of a sea yarn—performed on the same stellar level...
...However, as Luisa (a sort of Tyrolean Giselle), Katia Ric-ciarelli could not turn her limpid tones to expressive uses, causing the entire performance to lose its focus...
...Disappointments still occur, as in three shows I attended midseason...
...The line-up was at no time more ambitious than during the final six weeks, which featured new productions of Verdi's Don Carlo, Wagner's Derfliegende Hollander and Britten's Billy Budd, as well as notable revivals of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and Wagner's Parsifal...
...Certainly the most consequential of the new productions was Don Carlo...
...Marilyn Home as Eboli was similarly striking, her phrasing threading sparkle through the score's Rem-brandtian splendor...
...To rescue her French countrymen, Elizabeth of Val-ois renounces her love for Don Carlo, the Spanish crown prince, and marries the aged and callous King Philip II of Spain...
...At the pinnacle of his popularity, Sherrill Milnes as Rodrigo offered new evidence of his artistic advancement...
...On the other hand, the more reflective Ariadne auf Naxos eludes him almost completely...
...James Levine's conducting here, as in Don Carlo, was brilliant and robust— both scores suit him well...
...now, the work it does is special ("the best") by definition...
...Jean-Pierre Ponnelle envisions the action as a dream of the Steersman (who has no dramatic function) on Daland's ship, conflating his role with that of Senta's desperate suitor, Erik (whose jealousy precipitates the denouement...
...Tony Harrison's new English translation sacrificed intelligibility to rhyme...
...Milnes has learned to use his voice for purposes other than self-display—he has become an artist who not only thrills, but touches, too...
...Paul Plishka lent King Philip II forbidding majesty, and James Morris struck awe and terror as the Grand Inquisitor...
...Part II of this column, on the Met's Eugene Onegin, Billy Budd and Parsifal, will appear in the next issue...
...Her expressive range broadens as her vocalism grows more dependable...
...As for her stage presence, if real-life queens do not behave as Miss Scotto does, they should sign up with her for lessons...
...T JL...
...His recent recordings include outstanding readings of Jack Ranee in Fanciulla del West (DG 2709 078), Escamillo in Claudio Ab-bado's performance of Carmen (DG 2709 083) and Don Giovanni under Bohm (DG 2709 085...
...The largest of Verdi's conceptions, it proved, as written, intractable for the theaters of his own day, and was the object of repeated reworkings...
...The notion persists that Scotto achieves many of her most telling effects at the expense of tonal smoothness, but this is becoming increasingly untrue...
...on National Public Radio, he was heard as the Melancholy Dane in the San Diego Opera's revival (the first American performance in over 80 years) of Ambrose Thomas' Hamlet...
...Music Director James Levine and Director of Production John Dexter have given the company much needed stability: Their policies on casting, covers, preparation of new productions, and maintenance of old ones have sharply raised the Met's musical and dramatic standards, and their expansion of its repertoire significantly broadens the operatic horizon...
...Over the past few seasons, though, it has reverted to earning its celebrity production by production, performance by performance...
...The Metropolitan is the first house to mount this "master edition" uncut...
...Levine's conducting was too hard-driving...
...as Elizabeth, who can seem a pallid marionette, she burned with intelligence...
...Jose van Dam was even better: His aristocratic bass-baritone is equally just to the most introspective nuance and the most public proclamation...
...The political context is the fragile peace between France and Spain, and religious unrest in Flanders...
...The new production of Smetana's Bartered Bride was widely deplored, and with good reason...
...the Met's, at four and a half, moved forward with sustained tragic intensity, its color, variety and pace vindicating Verdi's grand scale at every turn...
...She proved no less memorable bidding a tender farewell to the banished Countess of Aremberg than intrepidly apostrophizing the dead King Charles V of Spain...
...Nonetheless, this opera did have some lovely individual performances...
...In his performance, the Dutchman's defiance, anguish, longing, and despair all found piercing expression in the medium of an eloquent cantabile line...
...While Giuseppe Giaco-mini as Don Carlo emitted tense, constricted sounds in his first-act romance, he made a steady, mellow partner in his duets with Scotto and Milnes...
...Only Princess Eboli, the king's mistress, lives for her own pleasure, and she wreaks havoc by betraying the prince's secret, blameless attachment to the queen...
...Although Miss Price reclaimed her part on closing night and had several splendid moments, her performance lacked the necessary center of calm assurance...
...Although the changes at the Met pretty much assure that every performance will invite serious assessment, they do not guarantee a great performance every night...
...In its early precarious days, it fought for fame by offering something special...
...With the Met this season Milnes has been winning ovations as Miller (he took part in the Luisa Miller seen coast-to-coast on the Public Broadcasting Service's Live from the Met series) and as the Marquis of Posa, a role he recorded some years ago under Carlo Giu-lini for the Angel label (S 3774...
...Renata Scotto stood at the center of a remarkable cast...
...She can be heard at the peak of her form in a brand-new recording of the opera under Sold, who conjures the music's shimmering hues with delicacy, yet never neglects its free and spacious unfolding (London OSA-13131...
...Greatness wanes when reputations are taken for granted...
...Her dramatic involvement was, as it has consistently been for several years, total...
...In her Met debut, which also marked her first outing in the Wagnerian repertoire, Carol Neblett appeared as Senta...
...Rodrigo, who remains loyal to the king and Don Carlo, incurs the wrath of the Inquisition and is assassinated with the king's heartsick consent...
...In Verdi's Luisa Miller, Levine gave an ardent account, and baritone Cornell MacNeil sang the heroine's father with an amplitude of phrase, refinement of sound and authenticity of sentiment that I have never heard from him...
...Elektra was revived under the baton of Erich Leinsdorf, whose methodical assembly of Strauss' mammoth structures hardly did justice to their thrilling immensity...
...The opera tells of great spirits whose destinies are shaped by great events...
...Most of her colleagues, unfortunately, were out of their depth, and certainly Danica Mastilovic is not the new champion we await for the punishing title role...
...Some of the hallucinatory effects pay off: the sudden wash of crimson as we first sight the ghostly vessel, or the shower of gold that lights the air when the Dutchman throws open his jewel-lined cape to give Daland an inkling of his wealth: But Ponelle's unit set requires the Dutchman to make every entrance from the bridge of Daland's ship and then wind his way down to the main deck...
...Despite these three inadequate efforts, the Met had an impressive season...
...Such style is widely thought of as "Italian," when in fact it is simply good singing, as handsomely matched to the German repertoire as it is to bel canto...
...Playing Rodolfo, tenor Jose Carreras lent the deceived lover manly decorum as well as lyric grace...
...And even she, abandoning her jealous frivolity, rises magnificently in repentance...
...Only Jon Vickers, cast as the foolish mama's boy Vasek, conveyed any of the score's native charm...
...With the adventurous Beverly Sills now also leading the New York City Opera in new directions, Lincoln Center seems destined in the next decade to take its METROPOLITAN OPERA place as one of the world's four or five richest showcases for opera...
...Van Dam was by turns enhanced and undermined by a picturesque, but at heart foolish, production...
Vol. 62 • April 1979 • No. 9
