Lady for a Day

Cute boys thronged the public spaces (and, yes, the restrooms) of the Met late in January when a pair of glamorous diva-intensive operas took the stage. The loudest shouts of "brava" were were flung in the direction of Gen X's soprano-of-choice, Renée Fleming, attempting her first local Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier (heard January 24).

You can't fault Fleming for looks. Her peachy skin, dimpled features, limpid blue eyes and curvy figure might have been painted by Fragonard. But as soon as the portrait came to life, it was obvious that she was no Viennese aristocrat but rather an upstate New York soccer mom, alternating unconvincing generic "grandeur" with a dispiriting lack of poise.

Fleming's inelegant physicality was mirrored in her vocalism. Her mellow lyric soprano turned breathy and unfocused as she pecked and darted at the notes, applying unsubtle daubs of "color" seemingly at random. An Austrian princess doesn't ordinarily slam into open chest voice when making small talk, but Fleming's description of her lover's young fiancée, ("Sie ist char-grunt") sounded like La Gioconda croaking imprecations at Laura. In the few purely vocal moments of this mostly conversational role, the soprano suffered more hits than misses. The sustained pianissimo high G-flat in the act one coda wavered and hooted, and the climactic high B of the great Trio was pretty much a yell.

What is so maddening is that Fleming is capable of moments of golden-age singing: the celebrated first phrases of this piece ("Hab mir's gelobt") floated out on a seemingly endless silken thread of breath. And it is hardly her fault that the number thereafter congealed into a lump of day-old Sachertorte. Can James Levine really believe this sort of slow-motion masturbation constitutes serious music-making?

Fleming sounded all the more gauche beside the polished Octavian of Susan Graham. The young mezzo's voice is a little lighter than what we are used to hearing in this role, with a cool silvery quality that suggests most effectively the artistocratic nature of this 17-year-old count. A couple of the outbursts in Act Two seemed to take Graham's voice to the limits of its power, but the tone remained invariably even and sweet throughout her range. It was a pleasure to hear the lyrical lines of the Presentation of the Rose and the final duet spun out with such Mozartean purity and grace. Ms. Graham's boyishly handsome face and Ziegfeld Girl legs tease us with just the androgynous charm librettist Hugo von Hoffmansthal must have hoped for.

Opera buff Tony Randall once remarked that each act of Der Rosenkavalier is about ten minutes too long, and the most expendable sections of the work are assigned to the boorish Baron Ochs. This time around, this character's galumphing humor was almost bearable thanks to the rich and characterful voice of Franz Hawlata, who lacked only one or two of the lowest tones. Tarted up to look like Jane Eaglen doing Cherubino, tenor Stuart Neill bawled out the Singer's aria in an anachronistic salami style. Heidi Grant Murphy twittered inaudibly as Sophie, recovering only just in time for a charming final duet with Ms. Graham. Bruce Donnell's direction coarsened courtly high comedy to noisy Married with Children sex farce.

Levine, rumored to be suffering from sciatica, did not show up as scheduled for Les Contes d'Hoffman on January 31. (I am told he stuggled through a runthrough of Die Walküre that afternoon.) In his place, Franz Vote frequently lost coordination between stage and pit. The orchestra on this occasion was in shocking form, the strings raw and out of tune, and the horns blatting and cracking every other measure.

Their din was easy to ignore, though, when Neil Shicoff (Hoffman) and Ruth Ann Swenson (the four heroines) took the stage. Well into his third decade on the boards, Shicoff now takes a little longer to warm up (the "Kleinzach" song sagged a bit in pitch) and the voice-killing "Ô dieu, de quel ivresse" no longer glides out with quite the insouciant ease he once commanded. But for the most part, he sings this role with a vigor and richness unmatched since Richard Tucker. I was happy to note that Shicoff has entirely reformed his "chip on the shoulder" onstage surliness, acting now with warmth and even a certain charm.

Ms. Swenson, creditable as Gilda and frankly dreary as Lucia and Elvira, really seems to come to life in French music. The Doll Song (sung here in G) has perhaps been performed with cleaner coloratura, but not even Beverly Sills brought to this piece a sweeter tone or a greater sense of girlish fun. I adored Swenson's sly smirks at the audience when she "accidentally" whacked the hyperactive Spalanzani (Bernard Fitch) with her clockwork gestures, and I delighted in the way she poked fun at her zaftig figure. (Even Barbie doesn't show that much cleavage!) She sang a literally flawless descending two-octave scale from high D as Antonia, and her long dying trill at the end of the act was something Adelina Patti might envy. Swenson was less comfortable in the high-lying lines of the "Mother" trio, and she lacked thrust in Giulietta's outbursts. However, she commanded a colorful lower register and a voluptuously sexy presence as the Venetian courtesan.

Bryn Terfel possesses one of the few geniunely golden voices before the public today; opulent, dark and flexible. But for some reason he insists on barking out much of the Four Villains' music like an aging Scarpia. What Offenbach wrote has plenty of character, but Terfel whispered and crooned and shouted and snarled, even in the supremely lyrical Diamond Aria. This gifted bass-baritone is not yet 40, but already he is singing out the side of his mouth (a sure symptom of shaky technique), and his top notes, when they are there, tend to turn hard and colorless. Terfel's mugging won a handful of cheap bellylaughs in the Antonia trio, all but drowning out the light-voiced Ms. Swenson. She was civil to him during the curtain calls, but just barely.

James Jorden