Anna Bolena at the Metropolitan Opera
Live in HD on October 15
By: Susan Hall - Sep 28, 2011
The Metropolitan Opera season opened on Monday with Donizetti’s Anna Bolena. We saw it at a dress rehearsal the week before, being otherwise engaged at the Chamber Society of Lincoln Center for fireworks on their stunning opening night.
Undoubtedly things will settle down by the time the Anna Bolena production is filmed for HD transmission at local Berkshire theaters on October 15. But more important, any reviews of the production on the Met stage are irrelevant to the experience of opera in a movie theater. The sins of live production can be easily covered by excellent direction and camera work. I have seen this over and over in comparing productions experienced in the house with the filmed version.
That said, what you will not notice in the movie theater is a curious interpretation of the Donizetti's music by conductor Marco Armiliato who is better at Puccini. The notes do not leap off instruments. There is a lack of brightness.
Anna Netrebko as Queen Anna is beautiful and a delightful performer who clearly enjoys being on stage. Her pitch problems are not going away, but because all singers sound alike in the movie theater it’s unlikely that you’ll notice. Too bad that the better singer, Angela Meade, is not doing the HD, but if you can, hear her in the house, where she will replace Netrebko on October 21, 24, 28.
Stephen Costello, a favorite of mine, had a tough outing. This is billed as his Met debut, but in fact is not. He stepped in for Marcello Giordani over a year ago, and with enough advance notice so a busload of his family and friends could come up from Ocean City, New Jersey for the occasion. Still, getting used to the big time is not easy. Costello has the stuff to shine in the HD.
Ildar Adbdrazakov as Enrico was splendid. And Ekaterina Gubanova in the difficult role of Giovanna Seymour sang beautifully.
Since the Metropolitan Opera has become a launching pad for the HDs there are only a few operas that you would really like to see in the house Last year I would not have missed Le Comte Ory with three sublime principals, Nixon in China, which the composer conducted, and Pelleas and Melisande, with the world’s premier conductor Sir Simon Rattle. The house was papered on many evenings. Discount seats were sold on the internet. Win some, lose some from General Manager Gelb’s point of view. Since he has no music director, or artistic director and, as a brilliant marketer is focused on the HDs, I wonder how long he’ll be able to maintain this very expensive launching pad. The HDs are terrific so we hope they’ll continue, under the umbrella of the Met or other opera houses, some of whose costs are more modest, and who also have artistic directors.