Cavalcade of stars
Back-to-back casts in the Metropolitan Opera’s revivals of Madama Butterfly and La traviata offer ample opportunity for soprano-gazing.
Matthew Polenzani
75 pieces since 2007 — in 31 roles, at 11 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
75
pieces
31
roles
11
companies
20
years
By role
Rodolfo 5
Duke 4
Idomeneo 3
Nadir 3
Pinkerton 2
Iopas 2
Italian Singer 2
Giasone 2
Leicester 2
Macduff 2
Ferrando 2
Nemorino 2
Anatol 2
Alfredo 2
Tito 1
Roberto Devereux 1
Singer 1
tenor 1
tenor soloist 1
Gustavo 1
Germont 1
Florestan 1
Fernand 1
Ernesto 1
Énée 1
Don Ottavio 1
Don José 1
Don Carlos 1
Devereux 1
Count Vaudémont 1
Alfredo Germont 1
40 pieces as Metropolitan Opera — stats above show all coverage for Matthew Polenzani.
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Polish rider
“The mystery of her voice gripped my soul,” Sharpless tells Pinkerton at the beginning of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. One could say the same thing of Aleksandra Kurzak’s remarkable portrayal of the title role, the main reason to catch the Met’s latest revival.
Dreamers with empty hands
It’s autumn in New York, baby.
Tremens factus sum ego
One got a sense that the Met and the maestro directed most of the rehearsal and preparation toward the opening night premiere of the Heggie opus
How do you solve a problem like ‘Medea’?
Sondra Radvanovsky has an unconventional voice that is suited to unconventional characters and is best used in rangy, difficult music. The lack of lush beauty was no deficit in depicting Medea’s jealousy and vengeful rage.
Give Paris one more chance
Pavarotti and Freni are gone but the Franco Zeffirelli Bohème remains.
Back to black
When was the last time the Metropolitan Opera mounted a new production that was musically outstanding yet the direction and/or design mostly sucked?
Get ready for the judgment day
In anticipation of the Met’s reopening performance on September 11, another serving of pandemic-hoarding arrives on Trove Thursday with 10 rare live performances of the Verdi Requiem’s concluding “Libera me.”
Champagne o’clock
Happy New Year, dear readers, from me, Callum, and Christine Goerke’s headband-tiara!
Queen of the New Year
Although the gold glitter cannons detonated at the end of the act were an ostentatious reminder that this was a celebration of the new year, it seemed that the only words on anyone’s lips as the audience filed out of the theater were “Viva Netrebko!”
Faces in the crowd
Saturday night’s Rosenkavalier at the Met was an evening of excess — beautiful singing, sensitive acting, elaborate sets, and an unfortunate business that mars Robert Carsen’s otherwise excellent production.
Bass instinct
Günther Groissböck’s ridiculously entertaining Baron Ochs and Sir Simon Rattle’s enthralling conducting soared highest during a mostly excellent revival of Der Rosenkavalier.
We’ll always have Paris
At Friday night’s performance of La Bohème at the Met, the cast seemed to lean into (and gamble upon) the production’s enduring popularity.
The other woman
I can’t think of an opera this year that I’ve enjoyed as much as Tuesday’s Met Macbeth, thanks especially to the smashing house debut of Italian soprano Anna Pirozzi as its blazing Madame M.
Portrait of a Lady on fire
My blood sure boiled at this revival of the Met’s utterly punchable production of Macbeth.
Into the wooed
We are the elusive, the mysterious, the ever-courted Millennial Audience, Mr. Darcy to the marketing department’s Mrs. Bennet.
Jest you, jest me
Friday night’s Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera revealed once again a predictable dissonance between the performances on stage and Michael Mayer’s production.
Why so seria?
At the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday night, Mozart’s opera never sounded fresher, a superstar cast shining new light on one of the composer’s all-too-seldom-performed scores.
Reach out in the darkness
Iolanta was crowned on Thursday evening by Sonya Yoncheva’s haunting portrayal of the blind title character.
‘Perles’ hearing
Alexander Birch Elliott‘ s dynamic if gauche Zurga added some pizzazz to an otherwise bland evening.
Placebo effect
Good singing and a dramatically potent (if conservative) production were an unbeatable combination in the Metropolitan Opera’s season premiere of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore.
Mit leichtem Herz und leichten Händen
Der Rosenkavalier (on Blu-ray and DVD) is from the Met HD broadcast which also happened to be the final performance of the run, becoming a true souvenir of the farewells of its two leading ladies.
The frailty of everything earthly
If everything you see is great, you are either new to opera or chronically easy to please.
Through a glass vaguely
Any production of Der Rosenkavalier that can transform the usually excruciating first half of the third act into a hilarious romp already has my vote.
Water, logged
So, how excited are you to read another piece about the Mary Zimmerman Rusalka?
Screen queen
This season’s Met Donizetti Tudor Trilogy concluded with Roberto Devereux, given its penultimate performance by HD transmission Saturday, April 16. It is good to see these works finally given here; they are too important, too crucial a part of the operatic repertory to have been ignored for as long as they have.
I want your Essex
During its first-ever Roberto Devereux Thursday evening one felt transported back to the Volpe years: four of the Met’s biggest stars shining in an opulent (if occasionally perverse) but reassuringly non-challenging production paid for by Sybil B. Harrington.
A fire upon the deep
Returning after 99 years for the Met’s annual New Year’s Eve gala, Bizet’s youthful exercise in Orientalia Les Pêcheurs de Perles proved a real crowd-pleaser.
Lost and found
Verdi must have gotten tired of tossing and turning by now and has gone back to resting in peace.
The ladies in question
There is a truism that there are no small parts, only small singers. Last night’s Così fan tutte has made me consider another possible truism: there are no bad productions, only miscast productions.
‘Twas ever “Thus”
While James Levine’s name might not immediately spring to mind when pondering the great Mozart conductors, he does have a long and distinguished career leading operas by the Austrian master.
Wigs and weaves
It’s easiest to write reviews when there are soaring triumphs and miserable failures.
First sip
UPDATE: A video preview of the new Elisir follows the jump.
Red dress diaries
La Cieca has just received a complete report from her spy at today’s open dress rehearsal of La traviata at the Met.
New classic
Willy Decker’s Traviata has garnered praise from critics and audiences alike in the week since its Metropolitan premiere, but (as was to be expected) this praise comes over the complaints of a select few traditionalists, a handful of lonely boos amid the mostly enthusiastic applause. Their objection (as usual) is that Decker’s production betrays the […]
Red shoe diary
La Cieca’s spy wriggled into last night’s Met dress rehearsal of La traviata and reports: “One has to be careful about making too many judgments or drawing too many conclusions from a rehearsal, but last night’s final dress was indeed very promising.”
Face time
As we look forward to New Year’s Eve and to the gala opening of Willy Decker’s La Traviata at the Met, it seems fitting to look back—by way of the official, live, DVD recording of the production’s sensational world premiere at the Salzburg Festival in 2005—to get some sense of what’s behind all the hype. […]
La morale in tutto questo?
Don Pasquale is one of those operas that make listeners feel very happy and gay, who, after seeing it, live happily ever after and gayer than before. It’s about a whore who needs to get laid, with an eye on the young (once and still bottom) hunk versus the older (once top, yes you guessed […]
Royal Hunt
Les Troyens is one of those things, or often two of those things, that should be a big event or it practically needn’t happen at all.* The keynote is grandiosity in the best way, from the subject to the musical demands (let’s include the implicit challenge of one singer performing both Cassandre and Didon—not because […]
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
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