The year in Corwin

Although I’m frequently envious of friends who frequent London or Paris or Berlin and their multiple opera houses with widely varied repertoires, I do know that New York City isn’t a bad place to live, operatically-speaking, particularly as I thought about the things I attended over the past calendar year. The ten (or actually eleven) events that make up my decidedly NYC-centric “Best of 2014” list are presented in chronological order.

1. Dmitri Tcherniakov’s grandly involving production of Borodin’s sprawling Prince Igor was one of the best things the Met has done in years. Despite its droopy choreography (and infamous price-tag), the poppy-filled Polovtsian act, in particular, was thrilling.

2. In spite of Sophie Koch’s lackluster Charlotte and Sir Richard Eyre’s awkward production, Jonas Kaufmann scored a singular personal triumph with his gorgeously sung, movingly acted portrayal of the title role of Massenet’s Werther at the Met.

3. A quick trip to the District of Columbia provided my first encounter with the Washington Concert Opera via its rip-roaring Il Corsaro. The work isn’t top-drawer, but after years of limp early Verdi at Carnegie Hall, Antony Walker’s taut orchestra and chorus were a pleasure as were Tamara Wilson’s sumptuous Gulnara and Nicole Cabell’s languid Medora fighting over the fiery corsair of Michael (“Squillo for days”) Fabiano.

4. What looked on paper like a “I can probably skip it” revival turned out to be one of the season’s greatest pleasures when the dream team of Diana Damrau and Javier Camerena woke up Mary Zimmerman’s much-unloved La Sonnambula at the Met. Just a few weeks later, Camarena confirmed his status as discovery of the year with a suavely endearing Ramiro in La Cenerentola.

5. A pair of Donizetti anti-heroines provided two divas with splendid vehicles: returning to New York after more than a decade, Mariella Devia at 66 showed that she remains a miracle of bel canto style as Elisabetta in Roberto Devereux with Opera Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall while Angela Meade surprised many with a blazing Lucrezia Borgia at the Caramoor Festival, her most committed and mature portrayal to date.

6. A visit by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra brought Handel’s striking but rarely performed Teseo to Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival. That swell period orchestra assembled a fine cast dominated by the demonic yet always movingly human Medea of Dominique Labelle.

7. After a disappointing Le Nozze di Figaro on Opening Night, the 2014-15 Met season blazed to life on its third night with a starry revival of Verdi’s Macbeth lithely led by Fabio Luisi and dominated by a startling Anna Netrebko, revelatory as the Scottish queen.

8. The 250th anniversary of the death of Jean-Philippe Rameau was celebrated by many special events in France but few in the US, but happily DC’s ever-questing Opera Lafayette brought its fanciful and alluring production of Les Fêtes de l’Hymen et de l’Amour to New York City for the work’s second staged performance since the 18th century.

9. Though surrounded by an uneven cast rarely worthy of her, Joyce DiDonato’s almost unbearably intense sorceress transformed The English Concert’s Alcina at Carnegie Hall into a searing character study.

10. Although it seemed for a while that it might not happen, the Met’s brave and evocative new production of John Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer proved a powerfully moving rebuff to those who had wished to censor it and made the cancelation of the HD transmission and radio broadcasts all the more regrettable.

Other indelible memories from the past year include Kristine Opolais’s powerfully moving Met Cio-Cio-San, Julia Bullock’s exquisite Cendrillon at Juilliard, and Gianandrea Noseda and the Teatro Regio di Torino’s spectacular chorus elevating Guglielmo Tell at Carnegie Hall.

Mark Padmore’s gaunt and haunted Evangelist was the most moving element of the Berlin Philharmonic’s disconcertingly luxe presentation of the Matthäus-passion at the Park Avenue Armory, while Stephen Powell’s magnificent Rigoletto at the Caramoor Festival again demonstrated that one of the world’s best Verdi baritones remains inexplicably absent from the Met.

But over the summer the MET did showcase three exciting Verdi voices—Amber Wagner, Jamie Barton and Russell Thomas–unfortunately they were singing in a free concert with piano accompaniment in Central Park rather than at Lincoln Center.