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!

Igor in the Poppy Fields (with PTSD)

Borodin’s Prince Igor

Met - February 21, 2014

Prince Igor prepares for war with the Polovstians.
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera

Lei: Whose Prince Igor is it? Is it even Prince Igor anymore? Where does one draw the line when directorial cuts and additions, score rearrangements and libretto departures transform an opera into something radically different from the "original"? Borodin's libretto is extremely rich and goes in so many directions that at times it’s hard to really pin down a cohesive narrative thread. The fragmentary nature of the opera explains why every production of Prince Igor constitutes a departure from Borodin’s intentions, including the opera’s 1890 debut that featured the posthumous composition and rearrangement of large portions of the work by two other composers (Glazunov and Rimsky-Korsakov).

Lui: Director Dmitri Tcherniakov claimed that with this production he intended to return to the source material and restore Prince Igor “as Borodin left it,” which is somehow ironic because at the end of the day the Met's new production is a unique and original take on a visionary yet still fragmentary score. It was most successful in its oneiric transitions between the first two scenes of Act I. Prince Igor's Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the aftermath of the battle finds us slipping in and out of consciousness with the injured prince after his army has been defeated and he and his son have ended up prisoners of the Polovtsian tribe they had attacked. Switching between projections onto a huge diaphanous screen at the front of the stage and peering through it at the action played out behind it in a spectacularly beautiful field of poppies, we struggle to make sense out of things right along with the wounded prince as he begins to pick up the pieces of what is left after his calamitous, hubristic fall. I've never seen anything so dreamy on the stage before. It was wildly effective, although if you don't know the story there was little in these directorial decisions that helped to clarify the plot. To me that was the beauty of it.
 

Nymphs frolic in Prince Igor's field of joy.
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera

Lei: Beautiful, yes, but does it work with Borodin's libretto? Or is the director just telling his own story? Why is Igor so happy in the poppy field with the nymphs dancing and singing beautifully around him about how great the Khan is? Does he think he's the Khan they're talking about? Or does he really like the music? Or the poppies? The Met's synopsis says that in this scene Igor "has a vision of the overwhelming joy of living life to its fullest." I may be too literal, but according to the libretto and the score here Igor is a captive prisoner assisting the display of power of the Khan who defeated him in battle and is now rubbing in how great he is and how sexy his beautiful dancers are. Maybe here Tcherniakov's Igor is just tripping out due to the effects of PTSD and imagining happy things. It was really a pleasure to watch, just a lot of freestyling with respect to what was being sung.

Lui: The dancers slowly emerge out of the tall grasses and poppies and dance around him like woodland nymphs, more in a hippy-happy apotheosis of joy and exaltation than the eroto-martial glorification of the greatness of the Khan that the score and the text suggest. The whole sequence in Tcherniakov's vision represents a powerful awakening for the Prince as he begins to come to terms with his new reality. Only in this take on the famous dance does he seem to glimpse a new joyous freedom, in the wake of his trauma, disgrace and defeat. Unlike the mighty Greek hero Ajax, whose madness in the aftermath of war takes over and eventually precipitates a tragic suicidal end, Prince Igor is slowly set on his road to recovery. And it begins, in this rendition, with some serious tripped-out introspection. Where does one find the strength to get back on the horse once you've fallen off. How does one go about picking up where you left off. The end then takes us to a particularly startling resolution of these questions.

The vaguely medieval meeting hall in Igor's native Putivl.
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera

Lei: Compared to the extraordinary visual effects of the poppy field scenes, the barren interior of the vaguely medieval hall used in the Prologue and Act II was far less visually engaging and also did not really work for the eclipse episode that in other productions can be so spectacular (think the 2013 Bolschoi production). Putting aside the visual thrill, it was surprising that the key narrative moment of the eclipse was so understated – it being the bad omen Igor in his hubris decides to ignore when he goes to war leading his troops into disaster. Act III was a more dynamic yet depressing assembly of war-zone debris and fires, looking uncomfortably contemporary like images coming out of Ukraine these days.

Vladimir and Konchakovna's oneiric Act III flashback.
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera 

Lui: It would have been great if the production could have maintained its initial oneiric quality, but techniques of this sort really only returned toward the end when, in a daring flashback interpolation, the Prince and his son stage their escape together and we get to glimpse the pain Vladimir experiences when he is forced to separate from the princess Konchakovna, with whom he had fallen in love during their time in the Khan's captivity.

Lei: Bass Ildar Abdrazakov was a great Prince Igor, owning the character in all of its nuances and delivering consistently powerful, deep and smooth singing. Abdrazakov is highly charismatic and a great actor, particularly effective in rendering Tcherniakov’s introspective tormented take on the prince. However, I wish his character had more singing time. It is a good thing that this production chose to reinsert a long Prince Igor monologue in Act III so we could hear more Abdrazakov.

Yaroslavna and Prince Galitsky duke it out.
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera

Soprano Oksana Dyka as Igor’s wife, Yaroslavna, had the most stage time and more singing than anybody else. She really carried entire portions of Acts II and III. She was consistently solid, piercingly clear and powerful though she did not display many nuances or earth-shaking passion. Though this may have something to do with Tcherniakov's take on their relationship. In his version, she is the Penelope under whom Igor's reign fell into ruin. Upon Igor's return she is the last person he wants to see. Rather than reunite, he is so self-absorbed in his disillusionment that he does everything but spit on her.

Tenor Sergey Semishkur and mezzo Anita Rachvelishvili portrayed the young rebellious lovers in the sub-plot tryst between Igor's son Vladimir and the Khan's daughter Konchakovna. Semishkur sounded too weak and shrill and was not a very convincing young ardent lover. It seems like the current famine of good tenors has spread to the Russians too. On the other hand, Rachvelishvili's singing was fiery, fluid and passionate. Her acting was particularly impressive in Act III, when she quickly covered half of the stage on her knees running after Vladimir all while lyrically imploring him not to go.

Prince Galitsky is a terrific villain role: he abducts and deflowers young maidens, attempts a coup d'etat, ingratiates his subjects with free booze, betrays Igor's trust and generally wines and dines all night long with his raucous crowd of Rigolettian courtiers. Mikhail Petrenko had great stage presence, displaying Galitsky's schemings and wrongdoings with energetic defiant swagger, but unfortunately his singing did not match such accurate acting. His delivery was so weak it was hard to even hear him, and generally lacked the expressiveness this role demands.

Khan Konchak extends his hospitality to Prince Igor.
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera

I am usually a big fan of bass Stefan Kocán but was underwhelmed by his portrayal of Khan Konchak who came across a bit stiff, not fully conveying the buoyant power of the character. I hope Kocan will be able to grow in this role with the kind of confident fluidity we saw him exhibit as Gremin and Sparafucile earlier this year. Also, I was not very convinced by the choice to make him an ugly, old, bald general sporting an absurd, yellow, nineteenth-century military uniform – Kocan’s natural slavic charms could have been used so much better to portray the exotic and powerful Khan.

According to a Belarusian friend who caught the opera with us, true Russian opera is more about the collective than the individual, and the collective was indeed the real star of the night. The Met Orchestra lead by Pavel Smelkov and the massive magnificent choruses delivered the most beautifully intense musical moments of the entire performance. I'm not sure what happened to Gianandrea Noseda. I was looking forward to an Italian conducting this Russian masterpiece that he also helped arrange for this production, though it seems like he will be conducting the rest of Prince Igor's run.

The defeated anti-hero comes home.
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera

The directorial choices for the finale were terrific, completely overturning what is done in more standard productions. Usually, Prince Igor is the defeated anti-hero who caused his people’s ruin and is saluted as a savior and an inspiration in an uplifting display of Russian nationalism. In Tcherniakov’s version, there is an added bit during which Igor, rightly uncomfortable with the celebrations, rings a makeshift bell and starts literally picking up the pieces of his devastated town and putting them back together, one by one, inspiring his countrymen to do the same without any fanfare. It’s not about glorious blazing victory, but rather acknowledging failures and mistakes: putting one’s head down and pushing through to start anew. Tcherniakov's take really emphasizes Igor's individual perspective by showing a glimpse of a sequel and making him a more credible hero as a man who has only just begun the process of resurrection after his defeat. The fact that the music accompanying such a dramatically idiosyncratic finale was taken from another Borodin composition that had nothing to do with the opera is not an insignificant detail. Nevertheless, while it was definitely not part of Borodin’s “original” vision, Tcherniakov's ending was highly tragic, human and real.

The sullen finale.
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera

Lui: The questions still stands. Whose Prince Igor is it? No matter where you draw the line, to say that Tcherniakov overstepped it is an understatement. After all, he took wild liberties not only with his staging, but also and more importantly with the libretto and score. During the Polovtsian dances, for example, they just as well could have sung the phone book in Cantonese, considering how little the action on stage corresponded with the breathtaking choral parts. In the final scene, the director moved to the Act I poppy field the husband-and-wife reunion duet and replaced it with a Borodin number that was not even composed for this opera. And so, this particular production is not necessarily Alexander Borodin's Prince Igor, but Dmitri Tcherniakov's. Regardless of how close an approximation he and his collaborators attempted to make of the original score, Tcherniakov made this one his own different (albeit beautiful) animal.

Against all odds, Igor "living life to its fullest."
Photo Credit: Sara Krulwich/New York Times

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