Placidone's return to the opera stage last night in Milan after a two month recovery from colon cancer surgery as Verdi's Simon Boccanegra was undoubtedly heroic, admirable, and almost miraculous – especially in this annoying new age of divas and divos cancelling performances on a whim without giving any more explanation than “illness”. But this premiere of Boccanegra didn’t yield the dream reception (as some are erroneously spinning without even having been present) that the Spanish tenor could have wanted, nor a Boccanegra who Verdi himself could have imagined affecting the role. And it certainly didn’t rise to the unbridled success that greeted it in Berlin last fall for Domingo’s role premiere.
Last night at la Scala for the opening night of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra with Domingo in the title role, the unruly loggione made sure that the drama on the stage would be shadowed by the drama in the stands, made even more effective by a curse hurled at the stage by one of the angriest ticketholders.
Despite an overwhelmingly positive curtain call before the first (and only) intermission, thirty minutes of interval was to be the final moment of tranquility: As Barenboim returned to the podium, he was jeered with endless bouts of booing, all of which he glared down. First came calls of "vergogna", then came a clear shout of "vaff*****", but after an old man shouted "basta", enough, Barenboim finally faced the orchestra and continued the opera.
At the end of the opera and Domingo's heart wrenching death, the tenor (as baritone) was initially met with clusters of booing, although it was effectively eviscerated by the overwhelming cheers. And after the loggione's decisive gutting of Barenboim during the intermission, the upper galleries emptied quickly and the Domingo-enforces stayed around to cheer their hero in front of the curtain. A success surely for Domingo, Hartejos, and most of the cast, but marred by boos, especially directed towards the production team and Barenboim.
San Diego Opera's upcoming La Bohème swaps out their Mimi. Anja Harteros has withdrawn from singing the lead for “personal and private reasons”, and young American soprano Ellie Dehn will step in opposite Piotr Beczala as Rodolfo for the January 30th opening night.
The German soprano is scheduled to return next to San Diego Opera in 2011 as the lead in Rosenkavalier.
American soprano Elaine Alvarez saves the day, yet again and again. This time, she'll be the relief Violetta at the Bayerische Staatsoper for tomorrow night's performance of La Traviata. Opera Chic was in Munich on Tuesday night to see Angela's Violetta, but now it's Elaine's turn to sizzle with Jonas Kaufmann's Alfredo.
Anja Harteros was originally called in to replace Angela Gheorghiu (Opera Chic reported on it here), although both divas pulled out, citing health issues. Alvarez is familiar with replacing Gheorghiu, as in September 2007 for LOC's La Bohème, she stepped-in last minute for the freshly-canned Angela.
Canadian director Robert Carsen's decade-old production of Haendel's Alcina, to celebrate the 250th anniversary to Handel's death was dusted off from Opéra National de Paris (which also traveled to Chicago Lyric Opera in the Fall of 1999 and starred Natalie Dessay as Morgana and Renee Fleming as Alcina) but should have probably been kept under lock & key, left to gather mold. OC is on the record as being an ardent Robert Carsen fan & devotee, having seen half-a-dozen Carsen productions since her three years in Milan -- his Scala Candide was brilliant but hammy-handed, his Teatro Regio Torino Salomewas earth-shattering in its emotional and artistic impact, his Wiener Staatsoper Manon Lescaut was kind of meeeh, his Scala Kát'a Kabanová was completely off-the-hook, and his Opernhaus Zürich Semele was elegance squared -- and OC's DVD of Carsen's Dialogue des Carmelites is a prized possession of a perfect -- yes, perfect -- staging, but the production we saw last night was Carsen in derivative form, action distilled to a meager slice of remembrance, static, tenuous shadows of his Semele without most of the wit or tongue-in-cheek social commentary that Carsen has perfected like a rebellious teenager. He is not Ingmar Bergman, thank goodness, and he shouldn't pretend to be -- he's usually not bashful about being an opera director.
Seen at Milan's Piermarini for the first time last night, la prima was dampened by two meager, tepid curtain calls, mercifully abbreviated to spare poor Patricia Petibon's Scala debut further scorn from the thorny logginonisti who hurled boos at her (in addition to a conflagration of booing at the end of Act I).
Heavy cuts (at least half-a-dozen arias, the chorus -- Maestro Casoni's peerless chorus -- reduced
to a much smaller role, no ballet, and Oberto chillingly mutilated) peppered this almost-4-hour (including scene changes) production. Carsen used the desaturated, ivory walls of a
palace to cage-in the action (ripped off by Claus Guth for his 2006 Nozze, with mold added here and there, and that unwritten Cupid), doors that slid open to reveal a garden -- touchingly Rousseauian in its dashing greens.
The furniture consisted of, like, four Chippendale chairs, and a wheeled dinner cart. Lights -- very beautifully designed, obviously -- can not always compensate for that kind of spareness.
Act I opened to the all-male chorus in various states of undress
slumbering on the floor (we had full-on frank n' beans -- photo above NOT from la Scala but from the same production in 2004 at Opéra Garnier)...a Spencer
Tunick opening move by chess master Carsen that made us hope for much better things to come. The director chose to make the corps literally into corpses, men-turned-zombies from Alcina's charms, the ghosts of her past, the Furies of love past, and we like to consider that a Sam Raimi/Evil Dead homage -- without putrefaction -- even if it wasn't. Although there was lots of nudity, there was no sensual, sexual energy. The production, on purpose, was cold and stripped of any eroticism by that big Canadian tease.
Petibon, whose thin voice -- with less than perfect coloratura -- is more viable in a tiny Baroque opera house environment or recording studio, and was swallowed in the crevasses of Scala despite possible ~audio enhancement~ [last night at a certain interval of the opera, there was the clear, unmistakeable high-pitched whining of classic audio feedback which was obviously amped from the Scala stage...we're dying with this one because clearly there was some sort of amplification audio system being used; we knew Berlin's Staatsoper already used electronic sound enhancement, we didn't know la Scala had followed through], struggled from the beginning of her Scala debut last night. Act II's "Ama, sospira" was a rough embark despite the ethereal violin solo, Petibon labored through the grueling aria, struggling to keep up with Maestro Antonini's speed, appearing almost as pained as she looked in her (not-so-high) heels and tight French-maid costume.
Petibon was too sporty, too distracted, and too frivolous to be
effective -- she was following stage directions, O.K., but you need different acting skills to pull it off -- she probably couldn't. She hobbled around in kitten heels that could have been
8-inch stilettos considering the way she plodded across the stage. Opera Chic felt bad for Petibon, and we're still fans of the lovely redhead...this was simply the wrong production for her.
It was at the end of Act I after Morgana's Tornami a vagheggiar that
the Scala audience first voiced their disapproval. Roundly booed as the
curtain went down, the boos fell onto an empty stage, but there was no
doubt they were meant for Petibon, whose weak phrasing and underwhelming
interpretation were an easy target for the *serious businessman*
loggioni. Petibon's accuti were decent with her fluttering technique,
but she lacked focus.
And in Tornami we have one of the very, very few truly outstanding monents in Carsen's staging -- Morgana serving dinner to an empty jacket -- those men, aren't they just empty suits? -- and dancing a little happy dance... The problem being that Nathalie Dessay (in a production that William Christie led beautifully as always) pulled it off with humor and her sweetness and vulnerability and gusto (see video below); Petibon couldn't.
Continue reading after the jump by clicking the link below...
Opera Chic is just back from la Scala where she just witnessed the premiere of Robert Carsen's staging of Haendel's "Alcina" (the old Opéra de Paris staging) where the loggione has mercilessly booed (at the end of Act I, then massively at the end of the opera) Patricia Petibon -- an underwhelming Morgana, OK, especially in Act I, but in Opera Chic's opinion not deserving of the fury unleashed on her by the peanut gallery (she took it quite proudly, smiling all the way through her exit from the wings -- that's an A for grace, at least: her singing was indeed problematic, as Opera Chic will explain in her review tomorrow).
Very weirdly, Robert Carsen, the director, got a few boos, also -- maybe for the frequent male nudity displayed on stage? Hard to say. The staging is not Carsen's best -- not sheer explosive genius as his Salome from Teatro Regio di Torino was last year, OK, but very few stagings can achieve that kind of awesomeness -- and there were a few moments that were really too static for Carsen's standards, but seriously, it's understandable that Petibon -- whose tiny, tiny, not particularly beautiful voice doesn't sound right for a theater as big as la Scala, she's probably more at home in smaller houses or, sadly, in the recording studio -- got booed. It's really quite strange that Carsen, of all people, a director whose talent is on a level not exactly seen many times in a Scala season (he's interesting even when he badly flunks a staging, and this isn't the case anyway), had to taste some of the loggione's crankiness.
Anja Harteros, as Alcina, started out very underwhelmingly in Act I -- she had OC worried that it would be a very, very long four hours -- but then recovered in Act II and ended very impressively (and she got applauded heartily at the end by the whole theater).
In Opera Chic's view the show was almost stolen by Monica Bacelli as Ruggiero -- maybe Opera Chic is lucky, but every time she witnessed a Bacelli performance, she always, always rocked.
