Elizabeth – Last night’s new productions of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci were disappointments, but in different ways. Sir David McVicar’s production of Cavalleria Rusticana was very bland. The large stage with the walls of a palazzo at the edges gave the space a sense of grandeur while the set itself was rather minimal. A circular rotating stage was center with chairs ringing the edges. When the singers entered in Moritz Junge’s dark drab costumes I was sure the setting was supposed to be puritan America. The lack of color throughout was sobering and honestly boring, though one could argue it conveyed the sensibilities of a religious yet poor Italian town. The moving circular set was distracting as singers had to move in time with it and remove chairs to keep the action focused toward the audience. It felt silly at points.
The plain set did allow for the music to be the focal point and Eva-Maria Westbroek’s Santuzza was gorgeous. I have heard her a couple times before and loved her. Here she was powerful as the passionate scorned lover of Turiddu seeking revenge while also heartbroken and rejected by her traditional town for her sins. She quickly and totally won me over.
Marcelo Álvarez as Turiddu was impressive right out of the gate. As soon as he entered he was great; his voice was warm yet strong. I loved his voice. Also great Tuesday night was the Met choir. They were very strong—at times they seemed a bit ahead of the orchestra, but overall it was a very tight performance. And best of all was the orchestra last night. Usually I find Fabio Luisi a bit too methodical and technical. But the music Tuesday was amazing. The intermezzo was beautifully and delicately executed as the stage filled with warm yellow light. I loved the melancholy yet beautiful atmosphere created. Especially impressive was the nimbleness given the orchestra’s large size. For me, Luisi carried the day on Cavalleria.
After the bland set of Cavalleria I was excited when I returned from intermission to see a bright blue curtain with shiny stars for Pagliacci. It was nice to have some color after the dark and bland colors of Cavalleria. Tonio, George Gagnidze, emerged in front of the curtain dressed in clown make up, telling us that what we are about to see is a true story and essentially that actors have feelings too. I found Gagnidze’s singing a bit cautious and sadly his voice didn’t grab me the way others’ did Tuesday night. But his acting was intense in the scene where he attempts to force himself on Nedda.
The 1940s street set was full of color and texture, again with the rotating circular stage, but a cute truck that carried the acting troupe and turned from vehicle to stage was fun and added focus to the stage. I didn’t find the backstory of the opera very convincing, however. Perhaps the brevity of the opera was behind this, but it wasn’t believable to me that Canio and Nedda were ever in love. Patricia Racette was good as Nedda, as was Marcelo Álvarez as the fiercely jealous Canio, but the story still left me unengaged. The opera really came to life for me during the play-within-the-opera. I loved that the little stage set up had the same blue curtain that the Met used. Very meta. The vaudeville consultant, Emil Wolk, had Canio’s troupe working like a well-oiled machine going from one gag to another—whip cream to pasta on people’s heads to juggling. And watching the silliness and horror of a character lose it onstage blending the fantasy of theatre and the reality of life while manipulating a chicken puppet was not something I often see.
As the cast took their bows at the end of the evening, loud booing could be heard when McVicar walked onstage. I was sitting in Dress Circle so those boos couldn’t have come from just a couple of people to be heard so loudly where I was sitting. McVicar actually paused, seemingly taken aback and uncertain, before proceeding to the center of the stage with his crew to accept the waning applause.
Shawn – I have complained that many of the new Met productions do not use the full size of the Met stage and therefore feel constricted in the huge space of the met. The new production of Cavalleria Rusticana has a great deal of space but I’m not sure for what reason. The set consisted of three stone wall backdrops and a raised platform in the center of the often revolving stage. This was all surrounded by chairs. Many, many chairs with choristers sitting in them like an audience. I thought perhaps this would connect to the play within the play scene in Pagliacci somehow, but it did not to my understanding. Other than that the Pagliacci scene too, had many chairs. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The entirety of Cavelleria Rusticana was exceedingly dark. Not thematically, though that too obviously but just immensely gloomy and under lit and the uniformly dark costumes caused the singers onstage to blend into each other. The low lighting was used to great effect once, during the famous intermezzo when choristers placed candles around the raised platform as the stage revolved. But otherwise it was so dark as to be not only be confusing but eye-wanderingly one note.There was also some very strange blocking. At one point three men did some kind of weird downstage vaudeville mime horse dance. I think they were meant to represent Alfio’s team of horses, but they were dressed like dark homeless mimes and I found the whole thing bizarre and distracting. The dancers were very committed to it though.
Darkness and mime horses notwithstanding, Eva-Maria Westbroek, after warming up a touch at the beginning, sparkled with color even in her drab under lit cavernous surroundings onstage. Marcelo Alvarez, too, shone though a couple of his high notes didn’t quite land to my ear. And George Gagnidze sang with his usual competence and aura of savage brutality. And I mean that in the best way.
What shone most in the onstage darkness of the first half of the double bill was the Met chorus. They sounded magnificent. As usual really.
During intermission I heard an older man saying to his wife, “It’s like an off-broadway production. The other production they probably burned is so much better.”
“But the singing’s good,” said his wife.
Yeah, but I can get that on a recording,” he responded. Interesting perspective.
Pagliacci worked far better I thought. The gorgeous blue sparking curtain was such a shock after the drab colorlessness of Cavalleria. Perhaps that was the idea behind the excessively dark set and costumes of Cavalleria, to make the color and action of Pagliacci pop all the more. In that way it worked, but not enough to make the first half’s colorlessness worth it.
George Gagnidze doubled as Tonio and his overture in front of the blue curtain was fine. I am used to a very different kind of voice singing it but that’s on me. He did pull off the first of the two big high notes far more effectively than I would have anticipated. He even gave me a bit of a jolt with it. Go him.
Updating it to 1949 worked as well I thought. It opened on action, the vintage truck carrying the Pagliaccio troupe backfires and smoke pours from under its hood and everyone pours out to see what is wrong with it.
Strangely the show within the show worked very well. I could believe this was a slapstick comedy show a small town might pay to watch. And the three comic actors Marty Keise, Andy Sapora and Joshua Wynter did an amazing job with most the shticks. Juggling, making whipped cream boobs, leaping through windows, mad chickens trying to escape from cooking pots – the vaudeville aspect worked well.
Additionally, the final moments even briefly gave me goosebumps, which is depressingly never a sure thing though it should be at these prices.
Patricia Racette, who like Westbroek took a bit to warm up but then shone, was amazingly believable in the slapstick physical comedy section and bizarrely kind of super sexy in general which is not something I thought I would ever say.
Gagnidze performed well, and had to be a puppeteer for much of the second act, which he did surprisingly well though he did have a problem with pinning back his fake puppet arm and ended up singing much of the second act with three visible arms. This was a little odd. And about that puppet, it was very obviously a chicken to my eyes. Recent confusion led to one of the greatest New York Times corrections I have ever read –
“Correction: April 12, 2015
An earlier picture caption for this article misstated the kind of puppet held by Mr. Wolk and used in ‘Pagliacci.’ It is a chicken puppet, not a duck puppet.”
Finally, speaking of misidentified and lost animals there was this tweet an hour or so before the performance from Susan Spector, the lovely and talented Second Oboeist of the Met Orchestra –
Such a shame. I wonder what he/she would have added to the performance.
–Elizabeth Frayer and Shawn E Milnes
Related Links:
Jonas Kaufman and the Reverse Scalpers: Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera
Is This Opera or Soap Opera? NYCO’s Troubled Rise From the Ashes
No mule! Who was Alfio whipping? Good stuff … I'm not a big fan of the new productions in general, but to be fair, it's been a long time since I was able to attend MET performances (I used to get there once a week 20 years ago–man, I'm old) … Booing turns me off, so I'm glad I've never witnessed that (except the night Pavarotti had a cold (or something) during Una furtiva lagrima and his voice cracked a time or two. I didn't mind the Rigoletto reproduction (but my dog, Rigoletto) probably wouldn't have appreciated the strip joint (neutered, you know) … Glad I found this blog. You two can keep me in the loop. I've been un-looped far too long. Enjoyed the reviews …
Rabbit season!