(Photo Credit: Ken Howard.)
Bad night last night at the Met in Lucia di Lammermoor with the utterly glamorous -- and gloriously expensive -- Netrebko/Villazon duo, as Opera Chic at la Scala basked in the silver light of Henri Duparc's music:
Netrebko simply lacked the vocal agility to pull it off. She stinted on much of the usual ornamentation and failed to hit the final high E-flat squarely. The applause that followed was surprisingly tepid for a scene that usually stops the show in its tracks.
For Met audiences who have heard both Natalie Dessay and Diana Damrau triumph as "Lucia" in the last 18 months, the question is why Netrebko should undertake the role at all when her voice is so much better suited to other repertory.
As for Villazon, he sounded in bad shape from his first entrance, an ominous rattle infecting his high notes. During his solo outburst in the wedding scene, his voice cracked and he froze for several seconds, then continued a half-tone lower. Before the curtain rose for the final act, general manager Peter Gelb announced Villazon "was not feeling well" but would continue. He made it, just barely, through his final scene, but the ovation he received was surely more a sympathy vote than a true endorsement.
It's especially worrisome to hear this once-promising Mexican tenor in such ragged shape, since he suffered a vocal crisis nearly two years ago and stopped singing for several months. This was his first Met appearance since he resumed his career in early 2008.
If you're a glass half-full kind of a person, well, at least no one collapsed on stage!
Still, it pretty much sucks, esp. given how many bad nights Rolandino seems to be having as of late (his comeback happened about a year ago already).