No bis of “Ah! Mes amis” from Juan Diego Flórez at the Met. More on that later.
If you attended Saturday's Met simulcast of Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment and you didn't have a thoroughly fun time then I really think you should look for some other art form to enjoy because opera absolutely does not get any more fun than that. It's a silly opera and rather like some Shakespeare comedies it can suffer from not actually being very funny. Except yesterday. It was funny. Very, very funny. Natalie Dessay is a natural comedienne in the mould of Lucille Ball. She seems to have a natural flair for physical comedy and for comedic timing - something which cannot be taught. Whether she was ironing the soldiers’ shirts or marching or being carried aloft she was a downright hoot. As had been reported from Monday's opening night there was definite chemistry between her and JDF which came across most convincingly.
A word to opera impresarios: If you are thinking of mounting a comic opera production at a major opera house in the near future then unless you have to hand Ms. Dessay, Mr. Flórez, the Laurent Pelly production and everything else the Met had in their quiver at the weekend, don't do La Fille du Regiment. Rossini's The Barber of Seville might be an excellent choice; Mozart's Così fan Tutte is a funny and charming masterpiece. Gilbert and Sullivan anyone? If you do Fille, though, people may walk out saying to each other "That was excellent!" but are going to then add "But did you see that Met production with Dessay and Flórez? My goodness wasn't that just fabulous?" There's going to be no getting away from it for a while; the gold standard for that opera has been set for the foreseeable future I would say. Go ahead. Reject my free advice. Just don't say I didn't warn you.
Felicity Palmer as the Marquise of Birkenfeld - the “Aunt” - played her part just sufficiently over-the-top to be funny without being a parody. We had seen her just a few weeks ago as a rather different kind of “Auntie” in Peter Grimes and it is a tribute to her acting capabilities that she seemed totally at home in both parts. Am I alone in thinking that when she was interviewed backstage during the intermission she looked and sounded just like Julie Andrews? Alessandro Corbelli made a charming Sulpice and the opera ended leaving one with the feeling that, just perhaps, his relationship with the Marquise was going in the same direction as that of Queen Victoria and Mr. John Brown. I am sorry he felt it necessary when he was interviewed to have a dig at Zeffirelli's production of Fille suggesting it was pretty tired and should be put out to pasture.
Marian Seldes had the Duchess of Krakenthorp down to a tee. Of course, Ms. Seldes is not without acting experience. She made her breakthrough on Broadway in 1948. That is not a typo, folks. Sixty years ago. Brava, Ms. Seldes!
Juan Diego Flórez is not the natural comic that Dessay clearly is but he came across as adequately ardent. He nailed his high C's and, as expected, the audience came unglued. Much shouting and clapping and stomping. JDF held his pose as long as possible before finally breaking the fourth wall and bowing to the audience in appreciation. It was a nice gesture and not overdone. The problem was that I believe the audience took that as a sign that he would do a bis and they stopped clapping and settled back in their seats waiting for JDF to do it over. Unfortunately I think Peter Gelb took that as a sign that they wanted to get on with the rest of the opera and there was no signal sent to the conductor's podium. It is possible of course that Mr. Gelb had decided that there should be no risk of debasing the coinage and that one bis in a week was quite enough. I suspect we shall hear something about this in the course of the next few days. JDF's aria in Act II was beautiful but not quite in tune. He sang a high D-flat ("It's not written but I put it in") which brought the hairs up on the back of my neck. This guy has a major bel canto voice.
You may have noted that I have made no mention of the quality of the singing. This is because something intruded into Saturday's performance which has left me confused and piqued. The singers had microphones. You may wish to take a pause and thoroughly digest what you just read. In the course of the intermission interviews there was mention by Renee Fleming and others about the difficulties performers have with spoken dialogue in a house the size of the Met. And now I am hearing that in the radio interview Dessay admitted that she was mic'ed for the dialogue portions of the opera. What has upset me is that this was done in an underhand manner and that it leaves one wondering whether there were other parts of the opera when Dessay and/or other singers had the assistance of amplification. One of my blog correspondents, malibran, who is a much better judge of these things than I, wrote today:
"During Act 1 of the Fille telecast, there was this odd "straw sticking our of my peck cleavage" action, which I frankly thought it was some odd undergarment, but my mother insisted it was a microphone. This sort of took me out of act one as I kept wondering how it could be a mic, since Dessay was running around the stage and obviously the sound of her outfit against the mic would create distortion. I am now hearing that during the radio transmission, Dessay admitted that she had a mic and that it was used for the dialogue portion of the opera.
I call b***s***. Now I am beginning to realize why her voice has been, until now, a strange thing to me. During the Romeo/Juliette I saw in the house, the voice was frankly impossibly big for its color. Even the whispers came across ALL TOO CLEAR, leading me to believe, that, perhaps, this was an example of a perfectly placed instrument which carries regardless of the sound. Now I question a lot."
Yes. So do I. And we shouldn't have to. So what's the deal, Mr. Gelb? Are the performers ever assisted in their singing by the application of a microphone and amplification? I think we are entitled to know. I truly enjoyed the sound made by Natalie Dessay on Saturday but my assessment of it would be significantly effected by the knowledge that it had been helped along. Hmph. Don't try to brush this issue away, gentle readers, because it goes to the very heart of the art form we all hold so dear. It's a subject which is going to become more and more important in the near future. I'm going to mull it over, do some reading, make enquiries with my Met 'mole' and then go speak with Christopher Mattaliano to see what he has to say. I think you can expect to read more about it here next week.
To mic or not to mic. I
To mic or not to mic. I think it's a very delicate question.
I think that the performers would have to be mic'd anyway for the simulcast. Mics that hang overhead and those that can be installed in the floor would not seem adequate to deliver the high quality of sound to theater audiences around the world. The only question in my mind is whether the audience in the hall during the simulcast should benefit (or be afflicted by it, depending on one's opinion). But here is where the complexities and potential dangers begin.
Certainly, the goal should be the best possible experience for the discerning listerner. Going to an opera in an acoustically deficient hall could be compared to going to a ball game and sitting behind the post. The Metropolitan Opera House in New York is acoustically brilliant and so making a case for mic-ing is difficult, save to compensate for deficiencies of the performers. Across Lincoln Center plaza, the home of the New York City Opera is commonly considered acoustically dead without augmented sound. But the mic-ing is done with such delicacy that it doesn't sound artificial, at least to my ear.
Unfortunately, there is a slippery slope involved. Mic-ing opens the door to many inferior talents who not only have weak voices but untrained ones because the control board can "fix" many things. In addition, you can't just mic one person on the stage, you must mic everyone and this can diminish the great voices to the same level as the poor ones. Also, when things are mic'd and you're in the house, it's tough to figure out who's singing in a large cast since all voices come out of the same speakers. This has ruined many Broadway musicals, in my opinion, as "brand name" stars are recruited from television sitcoms to do the work that used to require musical giants.
So if Mr. Gelb were to solicit my opinion on the matter, I would vote Yes on mic-ing individual performers to guarantee the best possible quality for the simulcasts but No on using any technologically augmented sound in the house itself. The Metropolitan Opera is blessed with some of the best acoustics in the world and has the economic muscle and prestige to attract the most powerful singers. Who could ask for anything more?
It would be a sad and sorry
It would be a sad and sorry thing if the Met had decided to mic singers--one of the reasons being a singer at the Met is the pinnacle of American opera singer achievement is that not just anyone can do it. There are a lot of consummate musicians, with beautiful voices and fine acting who cannot sing at the Met because their VOICES ARE NOT BIG ENOUGH. That is just the way things are. Not everyone gets to be Tiger Woods and not everyone gets to sing at the Met. And now... now we are looking at voices being amplified. HMMMM. So now is just any pretty voice going to have the opportunity to sing opera? Perhaps, just because they fit into a slinky dress?
And another thing--one of the major points of being an opera singer is that the voice is not subjected to our over amplified, hyped up lives and remains an artform that speaks directly to the audience without an electronic mediator. I am frankly appalled if this is where we are going.
harumph, indeed.
alex
This is am off-topic
This is am off-topic note-in-a-bottle.
If you are anywhere within striking distance of London, go to see ENO's The Merry Widow!
No crib notes necessary and sung in English rather than the original Pontenegrian, the opera caught me from the upbeat until the final curtain with the great melodies, dancing, terrific cast of actor/singers, and truly funny book.
This production is a love-letter from ENO to its' opera audience.
Bottle sealed with a champagne cork from Maxim's and tossed into Opera Guy's sea.
So there I was, Dick,my
So there I was, Dick,my knotted handkerchief protecting my pate from the noonday, my trousers rolled up sufficient to allow me to paddle while still retaining a modicum of decorum when what should I espy bobbing merrily up and down in the briny but your note-in-a bottle. Thank you for dispatching it!
As a matter of fact I am rather hoping to be in London over the Summer and will bear your recommendation in mind. I am delighted the singing is in English. Have you noticed how hard it is to keep one's Pontenegrian up to par while leading one's busy life?
The ENO seems to be getting some good press as of late. Yaay for them, I say.