Donizetti’s La Fille du régiment: Smiles and Tears

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On March 2, movie houses around the globe will screen Gaetano Donizetti’s opéra comique, La Fille du régiment (1840), live from the Metropolitan. The performance will star the soprano Pretty Yende and the tenor Javier Camarena. If until the late 1960s, general managers would want to stage the opera for a favorite soprano, since then it has been programmed subject to the availability of a tenor with a very secure upper register. Indeed, absent a tenor blessed with a high extension, La Fille du régiment will not be on the boards. 

The Met premiere of Donizetti’s work was staged in 1902 for Marcella Sembrich; it was revived in 1917-18 for Frieda Hempel. Our story begins in December 1940 when a new production was mounted for the company’s then reigning coloratura, Lily Pons. By that time, France had been at war with Germany for more than a year; the United States would enter the conflict a year later. Newspapers all over the country carried a photograph of the finale of La Fille du régiment in which, in place of the traditional French Tricolor, the flag of France occupied by the Nazis, French-born Pons waved the Cross of Lorraine of General Charles De Gaulle’s Free French. The Met orchestra played first “La Marseillaise” and then, as the Stars and Stripes were brought to the front of the stage and the Cross of Lorraine was dipped in tribute, “The Star Spangled Banner.” Some among those present were sure to remember that in 1918, three days after the Armistice, Hempel had interpolated the moving World War I anthem, “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” 

Pons was the Met’s preeminent coloratura from her 1931 debut to her departure from the company nearly three decades later. Through concerts, movies, radio, and recordings, her name had become a household word. Her rendition of “Salut à la France (Hail to France)” shows off the technique that captivated her fans. The cadenza at the aria’s conclusion, replete with a flute accompaniment reminiscent of the “Mad Scene” of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, exploits her fluency in embellishment and astonishing ease in alt, in the very highest notes of the soprano range.

Thirty years later, the Met revived La Fille du régiment. The new production brandished two superstars, the soprano Joan Sutherland and the tenor Luciano Pavarotti. On February 17, 1972, when Pavarotti nailed the nine high Cs of his first act aria “Ah, mes amis (Ah, my friends),” often omitted by less intrepid singers, the audience belonged to him, and since then audiences will not be denied the signature moment of the evening. And what is more, spectators, at least at the Met since Juan Diego Flórez’s stunning feat in 2008, consider an encore obligatory. Here is Pavarotti as he fires off his volley of high Cs in a live 1967 London performance..

The popularity of La Fille du régiment owes much to the virtuosic hurdles it poses to the principal singers. But Donizetti’s rich melodies and elegiac manner are also intrinsic to the score. At the end of Act I, Marie, the daughter of the regiment, bids a tearful farewell to her cherished troops. “Il faut partir (I must leave)” summons the soprano’s most long-breathed legato, an opportunity that Beverly Sills embraces in this 1970 live performance.

Tonio, the tenor role, also has a long moment of deep sentiment. In Act II, he pleads with Marie’s mother for permission to marry his beloved. Flórez’s elegant style is a perfect match for the elegant phrases of “Pour me rapprocher de Marie (To bring me close to Marie)” in this 2007 Vienna performance.

Norma, 2: Two Duets and a Transcendent Final Ensemble

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In the first of the two posts we devote to Vincenzo Bellini’s 1831 work (see Norma 1: Raising the Bar), we illustrate the opening act through three excerpts. The first is a rendition of “Casta Diva” in which the legendary American soprano of the 1920’s and 1930’s, Rosa Ponselle, in the role of the Druid priestess vowed to chastity, offers a prayer to the moon goddess. In the second clip, the Franco-Italian Gina Cigna, active in the 1930’s,  as Norma, in duet with Ebe Stignani as Adalgisa, a novice priestess, sings “Ah, rimembranza,” a recollection of the passionate onset of her love for the Roman proconsul Pollione. In the last excerpt, the trio that concludes the act, Maria Callas as Norma, Giulietta Simionato as Adalgisa, and Mario Del Monaco as Pollione confront the tragic consequences of their intertwined transgressions.

In this post, we continue to review the parade of great Normas of the past, Joan Sutherland and Montserrat Caballé, leading to the contemporary Sondra Radvanovsky, who tonight will open the 2017-2018 Met season in the exacting title role.

In 1952, when Maria Callas sang her first London Norma, the brief part of her confidante, Clotilde, was taken by a company member of the Royal Opera, the spinto Joan Sutherland, who was currently singing Verdi’s Aïda and Amelia (in Un Ballo in Maschera). Seven years later Sutherland became an overnight sensation and a global superstar as one of Callas’s bel canto heroines, Lucia di Lammermoor. Sutherland took immediate possession of the dramatic-coloratura roles that Callas had reclaimed from neglect, and added many of her own. In 1963 in Vancouver, it was Sutherland’s turn to become Norma, the supreme test for her voice type. The Adalgisa of the occasion, a role Bellini had written for a high soprano, soon appropriated by mezzo-sopranos, was the mezzo Marilyn Horne. Horne lightens the texture of her voice to suggest the youth and innocence of her character. Equal to Sutherland in the florid repertoire, she matches her partner in precision of articulation, of embellishment, and, of tone.

The duet, “Mira, O Norma,” from a 1970 television program made just after Horne’s Metropolitan debut as Adalgisa, provides evidence of the affinity of the two divas. Just prior to the duet, Norma has resolved to kill herself and deliver her children into the care of their father, Pollione, and especially of Adalgisa. Adalgisa calls forth the children as she beseeches Norma to live for their sake. The two women pledge eternal friendship in the joyous caballeta.

Another key figure in the bel canto revival of the late 20^th century was Montserrat Caballé. In her repertory of extraordinary variety, the operas of Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini hold a privileged place. We hear her as Norma in a 1974 festival performance at the Roman theatre of Orange. This excerpt captures Caballé in customary command of the scene’s florid requirements, and particularly alert to the character’s explosive temperament. Her Pollione is Jon Vickers in what, for him, was a rare bel canto excursion.

Incited by Norma, the Druids have risen up against the enemy Roman occupiers and have captured Pollione. In this duet, Norma first vows to spare Pollione’s life if he promises to give up Adalgisa. He refuses. Norma then threatens that her rival will perish along with all the Romans. Pollione offers his own life in exchange for that of Adalgisa.

The Norma of the Met’s opening night 2017, Sondra Radvanovsky, has the full barrage of technique, memorable timbre, range, and expressivity that we associate with her predecessors. In the opera’s finale, moved by Pollione’s gesture of self-sacrifice, Norma summons the Druids and confesses that she has betrayed her vows. She pleads with her father, the Archdruid Oroveso, to spare her children. He succumbs to her entreaties. Pollione, now filled with love and admiration for Norma, follows her onto the funeral pyre. Radvanovsky deploys to heart-rending effect the ethereal pianissimo called for by Bellini’s characteristically long phrases, yet she is able, with her enormous instrument, to cap the climactic moments with brilliant fortissimos. The selection is from a 2015 performance in Barcelona.

Met Galas 1: Star Power, 1966/2017

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The 2016-2017 Met season ended on May 13 with a performance of Franco Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac. A week earlier the company had put on an anniversary gala in celebration of its fifty years at Lincoln Center.

In this post, we describe, following first-hand reports and recordings of the event (much of which can be heard on Youtube), a comparably glittering evening, the farewell of 1966. In comparing that gala to the recent 50th anniversary commemoration we take a close look at the staging, the repertoire, and most particularly, on the roster of stars. This comparison, that we will pursue further in our next post, may be useful in shedding light on the straits in which the company finds itself today.

At eight o’clock on April 16, 1966, the curtain came up on the farewell concert at the Old Met on 39^th Street and Broadway; it came down at 1:25 the next morning. The program featured no fewer than fifty-seven artists, among them scores of now legendary Met names. Some, such as Dorothy Kirsten, Robert Merrill, and Regina Resnik, who had begun their careers under the regime of the former general manager during the 1940s, would go on to sing at the new Met. Especially moving were the turns of those for whom this would be the last hurrah. A long ovation greeted Licia Albanese’s “Un bel dì”; to shouts of “Save the Met,” she kissed her fingers and bent to touch the floor. Another was for Eleanor Steber as Vanessa. This line from Samuel Barber’s quintet was no doubt achingly poignant: “Let me look around once more. Who knows when I shall see this house again!” The most thunderous applause was reserved for Zinka Milanov. Near the end of the concert, with Richard Tucker, she sang the final duet from Andrea Chénier. Bravos mixed with cries of “We love you, Zinka” lasted a full five minutes.

Dorothy Kirsten’s selection was “Depuis le jour.” Here she sings the aria from Louise in a commerical recording. Kirsten’s value to the company was alrewady evident in the 1947-1948 revival of Charpentier’s opera. In this clip, the soprano exhibits the impeccable technique that would serve her through more than thirty years at the Met, the purity of her silvery timbre, and the ease with which she floats the notes in the upper register.

It came as no surprise that Licia Albanese chose “Un bel dì” from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, the opera in which she made her Met debut in 1940. Cio-Cio-Sanxx became her signature role; she sang it last  in 1965-1966, the season that marked her farewell together with that of the Old Met. This rendition of the aria, from a 1958 recording of the complete opera, gives a sense of the urgency and passion that were Albanese’s trademark.

The gala served also as a showcase for the first sixteen years of general manager Rudolf Bing’s regime and more specifically for the artists he had contracted during his tenure: Cesare Siepi, Nicolai Gedda, Jon Vickers, Régine Crespin, James McCracken, Teresa Stratas. Siepi made his company debut as King Philip in Verdi’s Don Carlo on the triumphant opening night of Bing’s first season, 1950-1951. He immediately established himself as the Met’s leading bass and held that position for more than twenty years. Philip’s majesterial xx aria, “Elle giammai m’amò,” was his to sing at the gala. As we hear in this 1970 televised concert in Cologne, his velvet timbre and seemless legato remained intact.

When Jon Vickers sang in Die Walküre, audiences could forget that, beginning in the second half of the 20^th century, Wagner singing began the decline that continues to this day. This 1963 concert performance of Siegmund’s ecastatic “Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond,” his contribution to the 1966 gala, captures the tenor at his intense, compelling best, his timbre brilliant, his immersion in the music complete.

Five of the superstars Bing had brought to the Met were also on the program: Renata Tebaldi, Franco Corelli, Birgit Nilsson, Montserrat Caballé, Leontyne Price. The Bing era coincided with Price’s ascension to the very peak of international stardom. Here, in a 1963 excerpt from the televised “Voice of Firestone,” she reprises Leonora’s “D’amor sulle ali rosee” from Il Trovatore, the opera of her company debut in 1961, as she did again in the 1963 concert. Shimmering tone, ease of emission, grandeur, and Verdian style are at her bid with an authority available to very few.

A number of dazzling newcomers in 1965-1966 who would figure prominently on future rosters. Grace Bumbry, Mirella Freni, Nicolai Ghiaurov, James King, Alfredo Kraus, Sherrill Milnes, and Renata Scotto, were not present at the April 1966 adieu. There were other, even more notable absences, Lauritz Melchior and Helen Traubel, both of whom had had bitter clashes with Bing. Then there were the stars Bing drew to the Met who had shone brightly and then had disappeared for various reasons in the years before the gala. Joan Sutherland had left in 1964 of her own volition and would return in 1966–1967. Antonietta Stella was dismissed after just four seasons, likely because she challenged the general manager’s interdiction of the solo bow. Cesare Valletti had been let go for reasons still obscure. Victoria de los Angeles was offended when Bing chose Eileen Farrell for Manuel de Falla’s Atlantida. Farrell herself (not a Bing favorite) sang only forty-seven Met performances, a total that would have been far greater had she taken on the Wagnerian heroines to which she was so splendidly suited. The most glaring absence at the farewell was the voice of the most famous diva of all, that of Maria Callas.

Turandot Is 90: 1926-2016

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Giacomo Puccini’s posthumous Turandot (unfinished at the composer’s death in November 1924, with the final scene completed by Franco Alfano) was an event of national moment at its La Scala world premiere in April 1926. Prior to reaching the Met just seven months later, in November of that same year, it had been the subject of lively interest in the New York press. The then general manager, Giulio Gatti-Casazza, filled the stage with stars, comprimarios, choristers, dancers, and supers reported to number between six hundred and seven hundred. Joseph Urban’s spectacular orientalist design, a pinnacle of decor, was just one of his fifty or so Met commissions, an oeuvre still unequaled.

Fifteen opening night curtain calls spoke eloquently of audience approbation. But most critics disagreed, some vehemently. The New York Times reviewer, Olin Downes, for one, embarked on the mission of striking the opera from the boards. He fulminated at every revival: “a whole resplendent operatic edifice, destined sooner or later to collapse like a house of cards, has been made of virtually nothing;” “Puccini had stopped creating when he wrote it, but had mastered the art of saying nothing exceedingly well; and in a final insult,” “there is only one work by a great composer of modern times that we think as bad, and that is the Egyptian Helen by Richard Strauss.” Downes and his colleagues notwithstanding, Turandot led the box office in 1926–27 and rang up receipts far above average the following season.

Following a run of twenty-seven performances between 1926 and 1930, Turandot was dropped, no doubt the victim of high production costs, hefty royalties, and the departure of the star soprano, Maria Jeritza, who had made the Chinese princess one of her signature roles. Here she is as Turandot, with Gatti-Casazza.

On the heels of the La Scala and Met premieres, Turandot made the rounds of the world’s great opera houses, and the tenor’s third act aria, “Nessun dorma (No one shall sleep)” quickly became an audience favorite. Calaf, the “Unknown Prince,” has bested Turandot in their riddle contest, but will renounce his prize, the princess herself, if she succeeds in discovering his name. At the climax of the aria, certain that he will prevail in their battle of wills, he exclaims “Vincerò.” Among the first to record “Nessun dorma” was Spanish tenor Antonio Cortis, moving in the dreamy opening section and thrilling in the concluding heroic outburst.

Turandot finally returned to the Met stage in 1961. The clarion voices of Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli would secure the opera’s place in the company’s canon for good. Here Corelli sings the Act I aria, “Non piangere Liù (Do not weep, Liù)” in a 1958 Italian television production. Calaf comforts the slave girl, Liù, who has accompanied his father into exile. Known for his stentorian top notes, Corelli exhibits the plangent tone and firm legato demanded by the piece.

The direction of the 1961 Turandot fell to Nathaniel Merrill. But the plaudits went to the delicate chinoiserie of Cecil Beaton’s long-ago Peking, with décor less grandiose than Puccini’s immense canvas had known in New York and elsewhere in the 1920s and 1930s.

Met audiences will see again this season (the “Live in HD” simulcast is scheduled for January 30, 2016) the Franco Zeffirelli mise-en-scène which is by now three decades old. No surprise here. A year after assuming the mantle of general manager, Peter Gelb told an interviewer: “I promised the Met subscribers when I first came on board—well, I didn’t promise anything, but I did say that there were two iconic Zeffirelli productions, Bohème and Turandot, and that the other Zeffirelli productions are going to be replaced.” Gelb has held fast to his word. The lavish La Bohème and the massive Turandot live on.

It was back in 1987, and thanks to the philanthropy of Sybil Harrington, and to the particular fancy she took to Zeffirelli’s menageries, that general manager Joseph Volpe’s Met could take on the expense of the gigantic production. Harrington’s clout provided another opening for lamentations on the state of opera in New York. One critic groused that Zeffirelli’s La Bohème, Tosca, and Turandot, all underwritten by Harrington, had “turned the Metropolitan from house of art into tourist attraction, a nice conclusion, perhaps, to a bus tour including lunch at Mama Leone’s.” He may have been thinking of that moment during the Act 2 riddle scene when audiences gasped in amazement, and most reviewers in dismay, as the princess’s imperial backpack gushed multicolored streamers. Even without the soon-abolished streamers, Zeffirelli’s overstuffed palace stands in vivid contrast to Beaton’s elegant staircase, seen above.

Turandot enters to sing one of the most taxing arias in the soprano repertoire. “In questa reggia (In this palace)” is a narrative about her ancestor, Princess Luo-ling, who was captured and murdered by the enemy. Turandot swears vengeance on any man who sues for her hand. She will put to him three riddles; if he fails to solve them he forfeits his life. Joan Sutherland, who performed heavier roles before becoming a bel canto coloratura soprano, is Turandot in this studio recording. She never sang the part onstage. Sutherland recounts the story compellingly and surmounts the exacting, high-lying phrases with ease and power.

Pucccini’s music ends just after the death of Liù, the slave girl who takes her own life rather than reveal the name of the Unknown Prince. In a lyric outpouring, she predicts that the ice princess, too, will fall in love with Calaf. Mafalda Favero, who appeared only twice at the Met in the late 1930s, expresses the grief and resolve which Puccini invested in the last aria he was able to pen.

 

 

 

 

A Not-so Merry Widow

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The new production of Franz Lehár’s frothy The Merry Widow opened (how could it have been otherwise?) on the occasion of the Met’s 2014 New Year’s Eve gala. Lehár’s operetta will be broadcast next Saturday “Live in HD” on approximately 2,000 screens in sixty-seven countries, including more than 800 in the U.S. and an ever increasing number across the globe. Thousands upon thousands of spectators internationally, and the 3,800 or so in the house at Lincoln Center, will see and hear the Austro-Hungarian composer’s 1905 triumph, premiered at the much smaller Theater an der Wien, then with a capacity of 1,230 seats. Directed and choreographed by Broadway’s Susan Stroman, with sets designed by Julian Crouch and costumes by William Ivey Long, this is only the second investiture of Lehár’s popular work in the company’s more than 130-year history. 

 

Opposition to operetta at the huge Met began during the short, flamboyant, roiling regime of Heinrich Conried, general manager from 1903 to 1908, and continues to this day. Conried’s two boldest strokes were, without a doubt, the 1903 first staging of Wagner’s Parsifal outside of Bayreuth and, in 1907, the U.S. premiere of Richard Strauss’s Salome. Less provocative, although still bold, was Conried’s programming of Johann Strauss’s operetta, Die Fledermaus; the next year, he persisted with Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron). The argument against the genre in Conried’s time was two-pronged. Operettas, no matter how charming, even brilliant, had no place at the Met: their dialogue was lost in the vast reaches of the auditorium; their scores were scaled for intimate theatres. One hundred ten years later, in his review of the 2014 gala, the New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini sang the same refrain: that despite amplification, the Met is no place for spoken dialogue (“The house is a cavernous place for a genre that relies on dialogue”). In her Wall Street Journal notice, Heidi Waleson agreed (“Operetta, with its long stretches of spoken dialogue, remains an uneasy fit for this big theater and its artists, who are more comfortable projecting emotion and character through song”).

The performance we attended on January 9 bore out the judgment that the Met is inhospitable to the many yards of dialogue and to the musical canvas of The Merry Widow. The cast, for the most part, struggled in vain to put the show over. The very talented Broadway star Kelli O’Hara, in her Met debut role, was easily a match for veteran opera hands Renée Fleming and Nathan Gunn, both of whom were challenged by the modest vocal demands of the music, and for her duet partner, tenor Alek Shrader, whose voice invariably faded as he climbed into the upper register. It may well be that, thanks to the microphone and the close-up lens, the “Live in HD” audience will have the aural and visual advantage over the in-house public. As for the choreography and decor, they came to life only in a witty can-can, and in the scene change from Hanna’s garden to the interior of Maxim’s. This last deserved and received the biggest hand of the evening.

The new Merry Widow was intended as a flattering "twilight-of-career" vehicle for Fleming who has announced that she is tapering off her operatic engagements. The Met’s first Merry Widow (2000) was mounted as a farewell for beloved mezzo Frederica von Stade. But before von Stade there had been another pretender to the role of the wealthy widow from the mythical country of Pontevedro. Joan Sutherland was the first to press the Met for the part of Hanna. To her displeasure, she was denied. She got her revenge by withdrawing from the Met from 1978 to 1982. Here is “la Stupenda” as she makes her entrance in a 1979 Sydney performance.

Hanna’s haunting “Viljalied” suited the silky legato and gleaming top notes of Viennese Hilde Güden. Her many operetta recordings document that she was to the manner born.

In a 2004 Zurich production, Piotr Beczala and Ute Gfere sing the Act II Camille-Valencienne duet. Beczala shows off the timbre and style that have brought him to Met stardom.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Erich Kunz offer an irresistible case for the sentiment and erotic power of “The Merry Widow Waltz.” This excerpt is drawn from the nearly complete recording that helped launch Angel records in 1953.

I Puritani I: Sopranos

Three titles by Vincenzo Bellini have been presented during the Met’s 2013-14 season. This feast for Belliniphiles is unprecedented in the company’s history. Each of the operas has featured at least one excellent individual performance, sometimes more. In the first cast of Norma, only Sandra Radvanovsky’s Druid priestess met the measure; in the second cast, Angela Meade found a worthy partner in Jamie Barton for the crucial Norma-Adalgisa duets. I reported on the very satisfying La Sonnambula in my April 6 post. I Puritani will be broadcast this coming Saturday, May 3.

When the 1976 Puritani production was new, Ming Cho Lee’s sets were meant to look like 19th-century pastel illustrations; Sandro Sequi’s direction recalled with affection the attitudes of 19th-century divas and divos. The subtle lighting and the texture of the show have degraded over time. At the premiere of the April 17 revival, the staging of the ensemble consisted of choristers moseying on and off the stage; some principals reacted to the drama with intent, others with standard gesticulation. The Elvira, Olga Peteyatko, a highly touted Russian coloratura, made her Met debut. She sang with clean fioriture (minus a fully developed trill), attention to the text and the theatrical moment. Yet for me, the full frisson was missing. Peteyatko’s agreeable tone lacked individuality; her acting was no more than acceptable. In the inevitable comparison with her most recent predecessor, Anna Netrebko is off the mark in dexterity, lacking even a rudimentary trill, but she sings much of the role beautifully and creates a riveting character. Peteyatko’s Arturo, Lawrence Brownlee, met his role’s daunting demands with courage and accuracy but without his customary ease. His beautiful tenore di grazia, so effective in Rossini, was sometimes stressed by Belllini’s more strenuous Arturo.

The Met’s first Puritani was presented during the company’s inaugural season, 1883-84, but only once. The most influential reviewers, confirmed Wagnerites, were dismissive of the bel canto repertory although fulsome in praise for the Elvira, Marcella Sembrich. I did not include an example of her singing in my post on Sonnambula. Her recording of Elvira’s “Qui la voce” and its cabaletta “Vien diletto” gives more pleasure and a better sense of her voice and her formidable technique.

 


The return of Puritani to the repertoire in 1918 marked a turn in the fortunes of bel canto: the critical establishment that had excoriated Bellini had begun to acknowledge his genius. The superb Met cast apparently did full justice to the score. To judge by this recording of Maria Barrientos, the Elvira, it must have been quite a night. Note: I suggest that you lower the volume for this excerpt.

 

Maria Callas was responsible for the resurrection of many bel canto operas in the mid-20th century. I Puritani had special significance for her. At the beginning of her career in Italy, she was known as a dramatic soprano. In January 1949, she was engaged in Venice for Brünnhilde. The conductor of the Wagner, Tullio Serafin, knew Callas’s voice and asked her to step in for an indisposed colleague just five days before the first night of Puritani. She had never sung the role of Elvira. She learned it on the spot—and the Valkyrie had found her true calling in the bel canto world. For the full impact of her dark, tragic Elvira, listen to this live excerpt from the May 29, 1952 performance in Mexico City, site of early international triumphs for Callas. She emerges clearly from the aural mess and prevails against a conductor who merely beats time and a chorus that seems to be sight-reading. This is the finale to Act I, the first of Elvira’s three mad scenes.

 

To Joan Sutherland goes a large measure of the credit for the renewal of interest in I Puritani at the Met. The 1976 production mounted for her has been followed by five revivals. Here she is in 1962, in Elvira’s entrance aria.



My next post will treat Puritani tenors and basses.