Pomeroy has a bright generic American tenor with one color and dynamic but a reliable command of most of the notes.

Having heard Pomery live a few times, I pretty much agree with this assessment (though it sounds like Pomery was suffering from nerves and not performing at his best). But I have to point out that the generic tenor you hear is Canadian, not American.

I heard her at the Richard Tucker Gala singing the La Wally aria and the Final Trio from Faust. The voice is still all there, and the top is fabulous.

I do think she is one of the most under-rated singers around.

Yes, if there’s anything that’s in demand in opera, it’s a 50-something soprano who specializes in Handel.

Hong has always been very helpful and willing to step in at the last minute when another lyric soprano cancels. Her “Traviata” contract of just one performance is probably insurance for a likely Gheorghiu cancellation(s). Hong also probably has been offered many roles including Butterfly but is a canny voice preservationist who doesn’t overstretch her resources. You lose some excitement and risk but the payoff is a longer more consistent and satisfying career.

However, the casting office seems to be drinking the kool-aid on overpromoted, undervoiced “it” girls and boys hot on the international circuit. Listening to Dasch on the opening night, she was undistinguished but not incompetent and was a treat to watch with good stage skills.

What would be lovely is to find some new roles for Hong and yes, I think there is still a place for her at the Met – middle-aged as she is as the voice is still so fresh and her musicianship so elegant. And she still looks a treat.

Hong maybe needs to explore some more Handel roles rather than trying to stretch her voice into bigger lyric roles like Marguerite and Butterfly. I think she would be wonderful as Magda in “La Rondine” and should alternate with Racette or Gheorghiu when the Met revives that production.

Which all goes to show the proof of the pudding, etc. and (more to the point) let’s wait and see if she’s invited back.

They (The Met is not alone in this) definitely underestimate what tricks it will take to win the Young Hip dollar. Newsflash: Quality!

I think I can say definitively that if Hong made a strong commitment to performing Butterfly, she could fill her calendar with as many engagements as she cared to travel to. Like it or not, and consider it racist or not, but Asian sopranos are always in demand for this role.

Or if she offered, say, Simon Boccanegra, Otello, Luisa Miller, Elsa in Lohengrin and a few other medium-weight spintoish parts and was willing to commit to spending 3 or 4 months in Europe, I am pretty sure she would be working constantly.

So how is it the Met’s fault that Hong has no contracts anywhere in the world? Is it the Met’s job to provide a sinecure for middle-aged lyric sopranos who are afraid to venture anything heavier than Mimi?

There’s a nice inherent color there, and the potential I think is pronounced, but she doesn’t have a single clue what she is doing. She needs about three years, and then a return.

My friends and I like hot women as much as the next, but when a friend and I go to an opera or a recital, we actually DO want to hear something good. I vote to bring back Hei-Kyung Hong. That woman is is gift, and the Met is dumb to have abandoned her.

I caught that little maneuver around the piano, RDaggle, and thanks for posting it. I second your thoughts on Netrebko–wonderful performance with all stops out.

The production is an entertaining traversal of a flawed work. Bartlett Sher sifts through the current vocabulary of theatrical effects and conceits, and no doubt the pasties etc will elicit some protest from the conservative wing. But there is nothing exciting in any sense about this staging. It is a conservative Met production with a soft porn gloss, so if there is any controversy it will be of the manufactured sort. Any comment on the singing should of course be based on an actual performance. If you are wondering who marked and who sang, the performance was a rehearsal and is beyond the critical pale in this regard.

As usual the cher public receives mixed marks for the commentary. In some cases (you know who you are) there is the expected humbug categorically stated, with little or no substantiation.

For the generally curious, as opposed to the “cognoscenti” here, I would say that for anyone interested in girl on girl action in a theater on Thursday evening, the Met is the place to be. There will be no raincoats checked.

The Olympia section gets a few points for weirdness.
German Expressionism looked to me to be the main stylistic influence. The circus setting reminded me of Tod Browning’s “Freaks”. The painted eyes on those parasols looked right out of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” And surely somewhere along the way Peter Lorre played that Mad Scientist with the white smock and rubber gloves.

But after that the visuals seemed uninspired. The Antonia act was: “Stand Back! Diva At Work!” That was made plain when, after she collapsed to the floor, her father rushed to her aid by crossing behind the piano. A direct line to his dying daughter would have momentarily obscured the soprano. Block the soprano from the audience for a second? That. Must. Not. Be.

(And frankly, I’m ok with that. Ms. Netrebko both sounded and looked fantastic and gave a passionate, if gloomy, performance. This Antonia knows from the start how it all will end.)

The Giuletta scene had a little bit of mismatch between the sophisticated courtesans in opulent gowns of black and dark red who surround a batch of scantily clad dancers doing Fosse splits. But that did help to undercut the prettiness of the music and remind us of what actually is going on in the story at this point.

So, will this be a hit with audiences?
Diva-centric: Check.
Tons of people onstage: Check.
Applause for scenery: Check.

You can do the math.

I’m sure some of All That Chat folk will also weigh in on the show after it opens, esp. since Bart Scher is directing. The ATCers know their theatre (they’re giving ALNM a good working over, except for Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela, who they love and who are two reasons why I opted for ALNM instead of the Hoffmann prima on Thursday).

Once again, the ruse that “theater” or “Broadway” directors have some magic that lets them improve opera is proven false. AGAIN! The Schenk production had grown tired but there was more sense of theater and magic in every one of the acts, both dramatically and visually, than I saw yesterday.

Kate Lindsey I did like, but could not hear much of the time. Was she marking or is that the full size of her voice? In which case, may be she would be better appreciated in smaller houses.