Onegin and the Weight of Time Past

Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin

Royal Opera House, London

January 2, 2015

The fleeting, haughty Onegin on the prowl.
Photo credit: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

The fourth and final stop in our holiday season opera tourism circuit was London, to catch the great Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Eugene Onegin singing in his native Russian at the Royal Opera House. And while our favorite Siberian villain baritone was the decisive factor for this trip (even more so after seeing him in the very emotional Trovatore at the Met), we were positively surprised by the inventiveness of the direction as well as by the rest of the cast.

Tatyana in her reading room.
Photo credit: ROH

A co-production of the Royal Opera House, the Fondazione Teatro Regio di Torino and Opera Australia, this Onegin realized the directorial vision of ROH’s own Kasper Holten. It was one of the most clever and thought-provoking stagings I’ve seen. Holten’s Onegin emphasizes many of the core themes of the opera including reflections on the passage of time, the pervasive nature of nostalgia, and the inevitable consequences of one’s wrong choices. It was simple yet effective, intellectual yet very moving at the same time.

The fateful encounters of our youth.
Photo credit: ROH

The straightforward and very versatile sets consisted primarily of a grand partition with four floor-to-ceiling doors that could open up onto abstract projections of the countryside in fall, winter and spring as the scene required or else serve as an element in Prince Gremin’s palace in the final scenes. Recessed features in the great wall also housed bookcases. After all, books play an important role in Tatyana’s young life as a passionate reader, and will inform many of her actions.

While things start simple in this production, elements from one scene to the next begin to accumulate. Tatyana’s books begin strewn across the floor. The servants pick them up. She goes and scatters them all over the place again. And there they remain. As does the rest of the detritus from all intervening scenes, including bails of hay from the harvest, fallen tree branches, cabinet doors ripped from their hinges, even Lensky’s corpse – yes poor Michael Fabiano had to lie there motionless after his defeat in the duel for the last 45 minutes of the opera or so. Unfortunate soul!

Detritus of previous scenes clutter the foreground at the ball.
Photo credit: ROH

These unusual yet transparent directorial decisions all added up to a very clear take on the material: with the passing of time the decisions we make have consequences that we must forever live with. The passage of time was also emphasized by the decision to have many of the early scenes acted out by younger versions of the Tatyana and Onegin characters played by dancers while the singers looked wistfully upon the disingenuousness of their prior selves and seem to sing their roles in a tone of regretful nostalgia – a reflexive commentary on the paths they went down, which squares up with the main lines of the story.

Dancers reenact the past as their alter egos look on.
Photo credi: ROH

The use of costumes to identify characters over time was also particularly charged. The red dress that Tatyana continues to sport under her princess coat right up to the end suggests that maybe underneath her newfound glitz she has not changed so much. Key events of the opera leave a trail on stage, as well as below the surface of subtle costuming decisions, as a memento of the long lasting impact of certain moments in the characters’ lives. The past is inescapable and our decisions and transgressions, the messes we make and the books we read stick with us. They clutter the brave new world we are eventually forced to inhabit. They make us who we are. They either hinder or inform us – humbling reflections as we embrace a new year, look back at the one just past and put forth our resolutions for the one ahead.

Onegin is about to make the mistake of his life.
Photo credit: ROH

Tchaikovsky’s score under the baton of maestro Semyon Bychkov was more romantic and heart wrenching than ever. As to the cast, it was truly excellent throughout without a single weak link. Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the title role was as expected seductive, smooth and haughty, with his velvety baritone more fluid than usual in his native Russian. However, Dmitri’s rendition of Onegin was not as gut-stirring as I was hoping for. True that the last time I saw him live it was for his comeback at the Met when he was showered by love and support from the public and his colleagues alike, so there was a whole different emotional vibe surrounding him and possibly in his own performance, too.

Lensky woos his lady love.
Photo credit: ROH

The singer who truly had me head over heels was tenor Michael Fabiano in his ROH debut with the role of the poet Lensky. While I’ve heard good things about this American tenor (who was also the recipient of the Richard Tucker award in 2014), I was not prepared for such soaring, intense, ardent passion. Fabiano was the quintessential young idealistic poet in love and had so much vocal charisma that I was truly upset to see him die so early in the opera, I wanted to hear way more from him (and having him lie dead on stage until the end did not help!).  

I am happy to report that the main takeaway of our little holiday opera tourism is that the tenor famine is officially over. Russell Thomas (as Pollione in Norma), Francesco Meli (as Carlo in Giovanna D’Arco) and now Michael Fabiano convinced me that there are still tenors out there capable of sounding powerfully manly yet goosebump-inducing and swooningly moving. Thank goodness as lately I was starting to lose hope.

Tatyana relives the letter she once wrote.
Photo credit: ROH

Australian soprano Nicole Car was a fresh and lyric Tatyana with an effortless beautiful sound. Acting-wise I found her more convincing when she portrayed the younger Tatyana in love compared to the older wiser version that came across as more stiff and confused than disdainful and mature. Bass-baritone Ferruccio Furlanetto as Prince Gremin was magnificent, with a deep seductive instrument and a very moving rendition of the older soldier who rediscovered the joys of love with the young Tatyana. It was one of those magic operatic moments when time stopped and everybody held their breath.

Prince Gremin with his fountain of youth.
Photo credit: ROH

Even the Royal Opera House itself seems to be going through a similar upheaval at the moment, grappling with the detritus of its past in this space. Their home at Covent Garden is breathtakingly gorgeous but also seemingly very messy. The common areas were all very stressful to navigate, definitely poorly organized and clearly not capacious enough to comfortably accommodate the crowds. As far as we can tell, the company recently started extensive renovation works, though it is unclear whether the discomfort we experienced was due to the works or rather the works are aimed at fixing the issue. In any event I definitely look forward to visiting the ROH again to check out how the ambitious renovation will solve the problem in the future.

– Lei & Lui

Younger Onegin enacts years of intervening debauchery while older Onegin watches.
Photo credit: ROH

The men prepare for their duel.
Photo credit: ROH

Princess Tatyana spurns her desired lover.
Photo credit: ROH

When Tatyana knew young love.
Photo credit: ROH

From Noon to Midnight at the Met, Part I

Verdi’s Il Trovatore

October 3, 2015 (Matinée – Live in HD)

Metropolitan Opera

Dmitri Hvorostovsky just keeps fighting back
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

Lei: My absolute favorite villain-playing baritone, the silver-haired, intriguingly handsome and velvet-voiced Dmitri Hvorostovsky, announced back in June that he was cancelling all future performances (including Il Trovatore at the Met) due to treatment for a sudden brain tumor. The news came as a terrible shock, especially since Dmitri exudes that action-movie-hero-operatic-rockstar aura of invincibility. But then, at the end of September, Hvorostovsky announced that he was actually going to sing three October dates of Trovatore, during a break from his treatment.

Lui: We obviously rushed to get tickets as we definitely could not miss him and wanted to show our support for an artist we admire so much. And that is how we ended up lining up two operas in one day – Trovatore matinee for the love of Dmitri and an evening show of Turandot for which we already had tickets.

Lei: With Dmitri’s plight on my mind, I came to this performance of Il Trovatore already feeling more than just a little emotional and I came out of it blissfully weeping for a number of great reasons, as it was easily the most perfect and deeply gratifying performance of Il Trovatore that I have ever experienced.

The gypsies working away at their furnaces.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

While I’ve seen David McVicar’s Goya-inspired production on at least two other occasions, it never much spoke to me. This time was different. Maybe it was one of those rare occasions where every singer on stage was top notch, or maybe Dmitri inspired everybody to give their best. Whatever the reason, the lead cast and the terrific Met chorus and orchestra (led by the fierce Marco Armiliato) brought the opera to life in a way that it felt like discovering Il Trovatore for the first time, seeing it in a new, more vivid light.

Kocán sets the stage.
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Lui: Even the plot, traditionally considered unnecessarily convoluted, made perfect sense to me. One just needs to be attentive to the backstory as it is very clearly laid out in the very first scene when the troops’ captain Ferrando, played by the excellent Stefan Kocán, narrates in his seductive bass how the youngest of the previous Conte di Luna’s sons went missing. And the rest of the opera just flows from there. He had me on the edge of my seat during this opening exposition aria. With starts and stops he pulls his listeners in. I was hanging on his every word like never before. 

Lei: Every time I see this singer I lament the lack of more extensive bass roles in the operatic repertoire, as I really would like to hear more from him. Kocán’s instrument is smooth and thunderous, with a menacing edge, and, all in all, exudes a quintessential manliness. As Ferrando, he made a sensational opening with his aria Di due figli, telling the tale that is really the origin of several dramatic tensions running through the opera (infanticide, avenging fury, maternal and filial love, outcasts vs. ruling class conflicts). Kocán sets the tone for the evening from the get-go, permeating this aria with a hypnotic and captivating force that remained constant throughout.

Lui: After more than two decades of absolutely owning the role, it is abundantly clear that Dolora Zajick was born to sing the gypsy Azucena. She has all the vocal moves. I particularly appreciate the way she transitions from her head voice, intoning Verdi’s soaring bel canto lines, to her chest voice, dropping into more guttural jarring notes through which seeps the fervor of her anger against the ruling class. Over the years, I feel like her voice has only gotten deeper, making her even more perfect for this role. Zajick is entrancing to listen to as she recounts her trials and tribulations as a mother forced to sacrifice her infant son as the child-swapping plot thickens.  

The big reveal: Azucena and her adopted son
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

Lei: Her Azucena is definitely one of the emotional cores and driving dramatic forces of the opera. Her final line Sei vendicata, o madre! (mother, you are avenged!) when Manrico is executed was chilling and almost demonic. Zajick perfectly embodies the conflicting nuances of a vengeance-driven yet lovingly maternal character, who cannot help getting her offspring (both biological and adopted) killed in order to avenge her own mother burnt at the stake. Rigoletto and Lucrezia Borgia come to mind as other Verdian variations on this theme of a parent causing the tragic death of his/her own child. 

Lui: Slight of build and svelte of gait, Yonghoon Lee brought a youthful exuberance to the role of Manrico. But he was also entirely self-assured, which lent an air of composure to his demeanor. Not to mention the fact that his instrument is decidedly manly. As a tenor, he is satisfying in his poignant delivery of the filial affective core of Verdi’s opera. He was confident of his place in this world and his voice rang out strong. I had been curious to catch him live and I look forward to more. He obviously has what it takes.

The heart-wrenching loss of young love
Photo credit: Ken Howard

Lei: While I found Lee powerful, expressive and technically accurate I was not blown away in any soul stirring melting way. His is a clean, strong voice but lacking that streak of male sensuality I look for in a tenor. Also, I was not particularly captivated by his acting and stage presence that, other than in Di quella pira when Lee was all fiery and up in arms,  I found a bit flat when compared to the intensity of the other singers on stage.

Lui: Anna Netrebko sounded better than ever. Her Italian has really come a long way. Usually brutal with the nuances of her pronunciation of the Italian language, this afternoon I could make out every syllable of every word she sang. And this really stood out to me. She was angelic and lovey dovey. In Il cor s’inebria, I was moved by the conviction of her young love. At turns, she was receptive to her two suitors; at others she was downright fiery and feisty. We even see her ramping up the gate in the scene where she pines for her lover who is locked away in the tower. That is, before she really comes to the realization that her feelings may lie elsewhere.

Leonora at the rampart
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

Lei: And that’s where Dmitri Hvorostovsky comes in. The show really belonged to him. The Siberian singer was in top form, despite his ailment. His baritone was insanely manly, yet lyrically tender at the same time. As usual he had an amazing stage presence. The Conte di Luna is really a role that gives him a lot to work with. He is the evil villain but also has ample room to show his soft side, which is just how malleable I came to discover this character to be.

Lui: Di Luna is often played like a dirty old power-hungry fiend, but he can also be played with a more mature sense of his sensual self, which in my mind is even more in line with certain nuances of the score and narrative flow. From the moment we are introduced to the Conte in Act I, his Tace la notte parallels Leonora’s Tacea la notte placida, which it immediately follows. Are we meant to see them as subconsciously already on the same wavelength? And then the depth of his feelings is juxtaposed to those of Manrico when the troubadour can be heard sweetly strumming his lute and faintly serenading his love from offstage (dolci si udiro e flebili / gli accordi d’un liuto).

In the clutches of the Conte
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

Depending on how these roles are sung, the Conte can end up representing the manly alternative to the delicate blossom of Manrico’s young love, particularly when the troubadour is played by a singer as fresh faced and jejune voiced as Lee. After all, the Conte is given, from the outset, some of the most mature and moving musical expressions of human affection.

When he is portrayed as more than just an evil old man, lusting after a poor maiden in the throes of her first experience of love, new possibilities in the story arise. It all begins early in the score and libretto and continues up to the climax. At the end of Conte di Luna’s Act IV Vivrà duet with Leonora, the prey seemed to respond to her predator, at least in this particular performance. In a surprising turn of events, Netrebko actively initiated a kiss, pressing into Hvorostovsky passionately, fervently, as though she was indeed actually swept off her feet, rather than just making believe to deceive di Luna to get what she wanted. When Leonora goes off with him at the end, Netrebko in this case took charge – she was unequivocally the one who whisked him off the stage.

In the Russian soprano’s hands, the prey suddenly becomes the predator, making it clear that one take on this story is that the young Leonora gets over her first love with the feeble poet once she discovers the sheer seductive power of this bolder velvet-voiced specimen of manhood. It obviously only works with the likes of Dmitri in the role – irresistible barihunk that he is. And the seeds are nevertheless planted as early as the first act, if you are clued in and not reading him or playing him as a scowling monster, which is much more often the case.

Sorry, Manrico, this time the Conte gets the girl. At least for a fleeting moment, because of course her guilt is too much to bear and things don’t end well for anyone really. And that is what makes this drama only seemingly convoluted, but also so incredibly moving. When in the right hands it can be as cathartic as the best Greek tragedy.

At which point does the prey become predator?
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

Lei: The combination of Netrebko, Lee and Hvorostovsky brought a new twist to the opera’s love triangle. While the plot empathizes with the Leonora / Manrico pure and innocent bond, I found myself cheering for the apparently villainous Conte di Luna (or is he?). Putting aside the fact of Dmitri was the hottest singer on stage, his rendition of the character was of a man so deeply and furiously in love with a woman that he would defy God to keep her:

Invano un Dio rivale

s’oppone all’amor mio,

non può nemmeno un Dio,

donna, rapirti a me,

non può rapirti a me!*

The love of Conte di Luna is also the most profound, tender and mature love in the whole score. Think of the show stopping aria, Il balen del suo sorriso, where Dmitri soars with the most elegant and effortless legato, not to mention the emotional charge of a man exuberantly yet firmly in love that left me shedding copious tears.

This is possibly the most moving aria in the whole opera, which to me grounds the counterintuitive conclusion that the villain is a more profound love interest than the romantic hero. Frankly, any woman listening to Dmitri deliver Il balen del suo sorriso would pick him over the Troubadour. It’s really a no brainer. Remember, Manrico is the guy who dumps Leonora to run to save his mother (who is not even his mother and he kind of knows that too!):

Era già figlio prima d’amarti,

non può frenarmi il tuo martir...

Madre infelice, corro a salvarti,

o teco almeno corro a morir!**

Also, Manrico is quick to doubt Leonora when she tells him she saved his life, immediately jumping to the conclusion that she betrayed him with the Count and covering her with insults (Ha quest’infame l’amor venduto / This wretch sold her love). Little does he know that she already poisoned herself and will die shortly. So, really, Leonora, you deserve better: next time don’t take that poison, dump that momma’s boy and go home with the hotter and far superior Conte di Luna!

– Lui & Lei

Charles Edwards' Goya-esque sets
Photo credit: Ken Howard

The tragic denouement
Photo credit: Marty Sohl

* In vain a rival God
opposes my love,
not even a God is able,
O woman, to steal you from me,
is able to steal you from me!

** Before I loved you, I was yet her son;
your suffering cannot restrain me...
Unhappy mother, I hasten to save you,
or at least, hasten to die with you!

You're Irresistible, Baby!

The Met’s Las Vegas Rigoletto

November 30, 2013

Photo credit: Ken Howard / Met Opera

We're in Las Vegas, circa 1960. “The Duke” is a Sinatra-like singer and the powerful owner of a casino where vice, money and decadent entertainment abound. He’s also a serial womanizer who can never get enough of the ladies. In fact, his entourage of suave men in shiny tuxedos often procures fresh prey for him. The hunchback Rigoletto is a comic who works for the Duke and is always poking fun at everyone, often pushing jokes too far. Enter a wealthy Arab sheik that Rigoletto needles obscenely as a cover to the Duke's recent conquest of his daughter. The humiliated sheik explodes in a rage and curses both the Duke and his comic. In a city where luck and superstition rule, a “maledizione” is serious stuff.

Photo credit: Ken Howard / Met Opera

Rigoletto gets off his comic shift and goes home to his only family, his beloved daughter Gilda – a beautiful pious young thing he keeps locked up at home at all times (except to go to Sunday mass). He is too afraid the vicious men of the town may corrupt his good little girl. Bad luck has it that somehow the Duke managed to lay eyes on sweet, chaste Gilda and decides he wants her. This time his trick will be to play the part of a lovey-dovey penniless student, which works pretty well. Gilda falls romantically head over heels for the “student” who also seems totally taken though that, too, could just be another womanizing strategy.

The Duke’s entourage decides to play a prank on Rigoletto and, thinking that Gilda is his lover, they abduct her and bring her to the Duke for his entertainment. The Duke deflowers Gilda at lightening speed and immediately thereafter loses interest. When Rigoletto discovers what happened to his innocent daughter he is rage-crazed and swears to avenge her honor. His bloody vengeance involves a hired (but honest) assassin and his slutty sister and it may or not go as planned...

Photo credit: Ken Howard / Met Opera

Does this sound like an 1851 opera? Or more like a modern mob movie? The Met showed us that time and place hardly matter as this story could be set in 16th century Mantua or 1960s Las Vegas and work equally well. Either way, it’s rife with dramatic tension, fiercely passionate Verdi music and some of the most beautiful singing.

It was a thrill to see the Met’s 2012 Las Vegas Rigoletto again. The singers in last year’s inaugural cast for the debut of this new production were so spectacular that it hardly mattered where they set it. Revisiting it again this year with a new cast and Pablo Heras-Casado conducting, we stand by the conviction that this modernized production works. The sets are dynamic and elaborate and the story is only made more vivid than if they had kept it in sixteenth-century Mantua with men in tights and puffy sleeves.

This time we decided to follow the Met English subtitles throughout the opera. And not out of necessity (being Italian speakers and knowing Rigoletto by heart) but rather because we heard that subtitles, too, were innovated by this production. The Met pushed its modernizing efforts to the point of revising the traditional English translation of the Italian libretto to jazz it up with 1960s Vegas slang. Updating the subtitles to match the era in which the opera is set is sure blasphemy to purists and really a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can engage the non-Italian speaking audience in livelier ways than a verbatim translation of 19th-century poetic language, which is admirable. On the other hand, however, it may be distracting and fall into the trap of going too far and radically changing the sense of the original, which is, indeed, a mortal sin even by our standards.

The Met did not fall into such trap and offered a refreshingly updated and often clever translation by Michael Panayos and Paul Cremo, without ever departing from the original core meaning but rather just massaging the text with glittery period touches that most times worked pretty well. Here’s an example:

Photo credit: Ken Howard / Met Opera

Original Libretto:

DUCA

Ma dee luminoso

In corte tal astro qual sole brillare.

Per voi qui ciascuno dovrà palpitare.

Per voi già possente la fiamma d'amore

Inebria, conquide, distrugge il mio core.

CONTESSA

Calmatevi …

Traditional Translation:

DUKE

So bright a star should be shedding

Photo credit: Ken Howard / Met Opera

its brilliance on my court.

You would make every heart beat faster here.

The fires of passion already flare

headily, conquering, consuming my heart.
COUNTESS

Calm yourself!

“Rat Pack” Translation:

DUKE

Your movie-star looks

really light up the place

Photo credit: Ken Howard / Met Opera

Every heart in this club

should be beating for you

You’re irresistible, baby

you make me burn with love

you send me to the moon!

COUNTESS

Take it easy, fella!

The “astro,” or star, metaphor carries over into a reference to movie starlets, and the Duke’s court is appropriately reconfigured as a club, while the Petrarchan language of the consuming fires of love translate directly into hepcat talk. It’s colorful and clever and almost even more successfully poetic with respect to the otherwise rather bland conventional English translation also presented here. After all, the Duke’s character is the kind of superficial lady’s man who would have come up with zingers like: “Come on, baby, let’s give it a whirl!”

When it comes to narrative strategies, Michael Mayer’s production not only remains true to the core of the original opera but also adds several touches that flesh out better the characters. The Duke’s is one of the characterizations that benefited most from the Vegas take. In classic productions, when in Act II he is sad because he thinks Gilda has been kidnapped and he starts going all mushy about she being “the one,” it is always a bit hard to believe since the Duke is supposed to be a chauvinist womanizer. This production has him do lines of cocaine and drink hard liquor while he sings these arias, thus suggesting, in line with the core of the character, that the Duke was just babbling under the effects of hard drugs and stiff alcohol, and, no matter how convinced he sounds in his singing, his convictions are as steadfast as a feather in the wind. Later, in Act III this Sinatra-like Duke sings the famous misogynistic aria “La donna e’ mobile / qual piuma al vento” while twirling around the pole of a strip club, making it clear (in case there was any doubt) that he’s the fickle one, not women.

Photo credit: Ken Howard / Met Opera

Another stroke of genius is the Rat Pack transformation of the Duke’s entourage that perfectly reflects the goliardic spirit of the courtiers, and very entertainingly so. Their chorus scenes are extremely vivid and effective, with a group of men in shiny multi-color tuxedos and a lot of hair gel gallivanting around in grand early-1960s cinematic style, all while singing Verdi. The three main Rat Pack characters, Borsa (Alexander Lewis), Marullo (Jeff Mattsey) and Count Ceprano (David Crawford) were definitely more fleshed out here than in other productions. Inspired by the likes of Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin and Sam Giancana, they evidently had a lot of fun with their roles and they were a pleasure to watch with their shenanigans, especially during some of the musical interludes.

This production at times even improves the narrative when compared to a more traditional setting. In fact, in Act II classic productions always struggle with a weak plot point when Rigoletto cannot hear the courtiers kidnapping his screaming daughter while he holds a ladder because he has a mask over his eyes (that allegedly also covers his ears?!?). Mayer cleverly solves the problem by sending Rigoletto “upstairs” in an elevator so that he’s not physically there when the actual kidnapping occurs and his failure to notice is thus made credible.

Photo credit: Ken Howard / Met Opera

Željko Lučić was just so spectacular last year that it was going to be a tall order for Dmitri Horostovsky to match his predecessor’s performance in the eponymous role. With his action movie star good looks, Dmitri is not your typical Rigoletto. And boy did they do a number on him in make-up! His transformation from “barihunk” into old hunchback with paunch and a few strands of white hair combed across an almost bald scalp was terrific, particularly since the proud shaking of his flowing silver mane is one of Dmitri's signature moves in virtually every other role he performs. Also, one would think that both his haughty acting and fierce singing style generally better suit a sexy villain rather than the hunch-backed, pathos-invoking paterfamilias at the center of Verdi’s Rigoletto.

Photo credit: Ruby Washington / The New York Times

Dmitri’s acting was intensely accurate and generally successful in getting into character, showing a range that we rarely see from him. In the first scene he was hamming it up with the lounge dancers and twisting his hips like Elvis as he taunted the sheik, rendering the comic side of Rigoletto very energetic when compared to traditional settings. Horostovsky was a fairly convincing tender father in his duets with Gilda, however his best stage presence (not surprisingly) was in the raging bits, so much that in “Cortigiani, vil razza dannata,” he was a bit too busy forcefully acting and running from one courtier to the other, affecting a bit the intensity of his singing. While Dmitri’s angry-edged baritone sounded on the snarling end at times, he consistently delivered deep dark tones with hints of a smooth sweetness that made for a vocally charismatic Rigoletto. The evening we saw him, his voice felt unusually restrained in the first act, but when he loosened up he was sensational. His duets with Gilda were as lovely and heart wrenching as ever, “Fanciulla piangi” making the fanciulla of us cry copiously and Dmitri’s vocal performance in the third act ranged from vengeful to deeply dramatic to desperately defeated, just the way we like a Rigoletto.

Photo credit: Ken Howard / Met Opera

But it was the young soprano, Sonya Yoncheva, who stole the show while stepping in to replace Aleksandra Kurzak (pregnant with tenor Roberto Alagna’s child). Yoncheva sang consistently stronger than anybody else on stage, outshining even all of the seasoned Met veterans in this cast, including both Horostovsky and Polenzani. The piercing purity of her voice streamed effortlessly from her petite frame. With her frail yet powerful lyricism and her charming presence, Yoncheva dominated her scenes gracefully and tragically. Fresh faced and youthful, she really looked the part and embodied all the vulnerability of the poor tragic naïve Gilda. Yoncheva did not win Placido Domingo’s Operalia competition in 2010 for nothing – definitely a singer to keep an eye on.

Matthew Polenzani is growing on us, while we were not convinced by his Nemorino in 2012, we enjoyed him in Maria Stuarda and Così and really appreciated him as the Duke. He delivered clean, fresh sound, clear articulation, on point tempo and musicality, and great Sinatra-like acting. On the whole, he is highly likeable, but he still does not stir the deep turmoil that a world-class Italian-style tenor should be capable of. We find Polenzani to be often too high pitched; lacking a certain manly depth, with his voice still sounding almost too young, remaining too firmly on the surface.  

Photo credit: Ken Howard / Met Opera

Slovak bass Stefan Kocán always exudes charisma with commanding stage presence and his Sparafucile was no exception. While we've seen and loved him before in the role, this time his acting got even better, portraying the honest villain (he may be a hired assassin but he's not a thief!) with the sleek confidence of a film noir actor. Vocally, Kocán has a deep, rich and smooth tone that somehow comes as a surprise from such a young singer and is always a pleasure to hear. We wish there were more extensive bass roles around so that we could get more Kocán –looking forward to seeing him as Konchak in Prince Igor in February!

A lot has been said about the spectacular sets of this production, for which no detail was small enough, from the diverse use of the “neon vocabulary” throughout the three acts, to the wink-wink references to the Met’s own decorative elements (gates, chandeliers, curtains), to the Nevada license plate of Sparafucile’s car ("SPARFUC"). We can only let the pictures speak for themselves and salute the Met’s set design team for the terrific effort.

Photo credit: Ken Howard / Met Opera

This production is to us the perfect example of a clever new take on a classic and thus a must see for virtually everybody: it may entertainingly lure opera-virgins into the art form, convert the traditionalist to modernizations of classic repertoire and refresh Rigoletto for those who know it by heart. Let’s hear it for Met Opera taking more calculated risks like this!

– Lei & Lui