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Love Potion Opens Season at the Met
Metropolitan Opera’s Latest ‘Elisir d’Amore’
The new season of the Metropolitan Opera opened on Monday night with Donizetti's enduring comedy “L’Elisir d’Amore.”
ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Published: September 25, 2012
Another Metropolitan Opera opening night, another new production of a Donizetti opera starring the charismatic soprano Anna Netrebko.
Or so it seems these days.
Or so it seems these days.
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Last season opened with Donizetti’s tragic “Anna Bolena,” the company’s first production of the work, directed by David McVicar, with Netrebko taking the daunting title role.
The new season opened on Monday night, and the Donizetti opera of choice this time was the enduring comedy “L’Elisir d’Amore”, directed by Bartlett Sher.
Netrebko sings the role of Adina, a resourceful farm owner in early-19th-century Basque country, a woman too headstrong for her own good.
For this occasion the performance was shown live on screens in Lincoln Center Plaza and Times Square.
The new season opened on Monday night, and the Donizetti opera of choice this time was the enduring comedy “L’Elisir d’Amore”, directed by Bartlett Sher.
Netrebko sings the role of Adina, a resourceful farm owner in early-19th-century Basque country, a woman too headstrong for her own good.
For this occasion the performance was shown live on screens in Lincoln Center Plaza and Times Square.
With all respect to Donizetti, a towering figure in Italian opera who cleared a path for Verdi, it does seem a little odd that the Met has opened successive seasons with Donizetti vehicles for Netrebko.
Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, has said that the schedule just worked out this way.
Maybe after the ordeal of mounting Wagner’s “Ring” cycle in Robert Lepage’s gargantuan staging, going with a safe choice like “Elisir” for this opening night made sense.
And some ambitious fare is coming up.
Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, has said that the schedule just worked out this way.
Maybe after the ordeal of mounting Wagner’s “Ring” cycle in Robert Lepage’s gargantuan staging, going with a safe choice like “Elisir” for this opening night made sense.
And some ambitious fare is coming up.
What mattered on Monday was that the Met, having junked its 1991 production of “Elisir,” a cutesy show with cartoonish sets, now has a handsome and insightful new staging.
The cast, which also stars the tenor Matthew Polenzani as Nemorino, the villager who pines for Adina, is terrific.
Maurizio Benini conducts a stylish and zesty performance.
And Sher delves beneath the surface of this frothy, tuneful opera to highlight its tale of two young people incapable of facing their mutual attraction.
The cast, which also stars the tenor Matthew Polenzani as Nemorino, the villager who pines for Adina, is terrific.
Maurizio Benini conducts a stylish and zesty performance.
And Sher delves beneath the surface of this frothy, tuneful opera to highlight its tale of two young people incapable of facing their mutual attraction.
When you think about it, “Elisir” is not all that funny.
And Mr. Sher has clearly thought about it.
This production is especially good at revealing the class element that has impeded the relationship between Adina and Nemorino when we meet them.
And Mr. Sher has clearly thought about it.
This production is especially good at revealing the class element that has impeded the relationship between Adina and Nemorino when we meet them.
Nemorino, a young man who feels deeply, thinks himself a nobody.
To him Adina is a wonder, a woman running a farm, someone who reads books and knows things.
When the dashing, cocky Sergeant Belcore shows up, and Adina appears to fall for him, Nemorino is tormented but not that surprised.
What can Nemorino offer in comparison?
To him Adina is a wonder, a woman running a farm, someone who reads books and knows things.
When the dashing, cocky Sergeant Belcore shows up, and Adina appears to fall for him, Nemorino is tormented but not that surprised.
What can Nemorino offer in comparison?
This makes him an easy target for the sales pitch of Dr. Dulcamara, a quack who peddles an elixir that he says can grow hair, cure rickets and do almost anything (even combat bedbugs, which would make the stuff popular in New York).
When Dulcamara claims that his brew is also an elixir of love, Nemorino must have it.
When Dulcamara claims that his brew is also an elixir of love, Nemorino must have it.
In its look and feel, the production is true to the opera’s original setting.
Michael Yeargan’s modest, painterly sets evoke wheat fields, vineyards and village piazzas in soft browns and russets.
Catherine Zuber’s lovely costumes are similarly rustic and simple.
In the opening scene, when the choristers, playing peasants, take a break from work and find shady spots to rest, you can practically feel the hazy sun of the Basque country.
Michael Yeargan’s modest, painterly sets evoke wheat fields, vineyards and village piazzas in soft browns and russets.
Catherine Zuber’s lovely costumes are similarly rustic and simple.
In the opening scene, when the choristers, playing peasants, take a break from work and find shady spots to rest, you can practically feel the hazy sun of the Basque country.
The production’s contemporary element comes from showing the main characters engaged in a triangle of desire, distrust and gamesmanship.
As Netrebko’s voice has gained body, power and darker colorings in recent years, she has been moving away from lighter ingénue roles toward vocally weightier repertory.
So this may be the last chance for Met audiences to hear her impetuous Adina.
If a soubrette soprano is your preference in this role, Netrebko’s full-throated performance is not for you.
She may have almost too much voice for the music.
Capping an agitated phrase with a penetrating top note, she sometimes sounded as if she were Tosca swearing vengeance.
As Netrebko’s voice has gained body, power and darker colorings in recent years, she has been moving away from lighter ingénue roles toward vocally weightier repertory.
So this may be the last chance for Met audiences to hear her impetuous Adina.
If a soubrette soprano is your preference in this role, Netrebko’s full-throated performance is not for you.
She may have almost too much voice for the music.
Capping an agitated phrase with a penetrating top note, she sometimes sounded as if she were Tosca swearing vengeance.
But in her village Adina is a like a prima donna, something Netrebko easily conveys.
Her singing is feisty and earthy one moment, poignant and shimmering the next.
If coloratura passages are not always smoothly executed, each run and roulade has shape and character.
Her Adina is a breezy woman caught in a bind, touched by Nemorino’s passion but rattled by his helplessness.
Her singing is feisty and earthy one moment, poignant and shimmering the next.
If coloratura passages are not always smoothly executed, each run and roulade has shape and character.
Her Adina is a breezy woman caught in a bind, touched by Nemorino’s passion but rattled by his helplessness.
Wearing a wavy wig that makes him look like a cross of a Byronic hero, Tristano, and a disheveled bumpkin, Polenzani is an endearing Nemorino.
But he captures the dangerous hothead side of the character as well, bounding about the stage, writhing with frustration and leaping atop crates to declare his love.
But he captures the dangerous hothead side of the character as well, bounding about the stage, writhing with frustration and leaping atop crates to declare his love.
Mr. Polenzani is coming into his prime.
Though he still has youthful sweetness in his voice, in recent years he has been singing with increasing ardor, richness and power.
He holds back nothing here.
Yet in the great aria “Una furtiva lagrima,” where Nemorino dares to believe that Adina loves him, it was Mr. Polenzani’s honeyed phrases that won your heart.
Though he still has youthful sweetness in his voice, in recent years he has been singing with increasing ardor, richness and power.
He holds back nothing here.
Yet in the great aria “Una furtiva lagrima,” where Nemorino dares to believe that Adina loves him, it was Mr. Polenzani’s honeyed phrases that won your heart.
The baritone Mariusz Kwiecien, who performed Belcore in the final run of the previous “Elisir” production last season, is a stage natural who sings with hearty sound and seductive lyricism.
Yet though Belcore is a self-absorbed lady’s man, Mr. Kwiecien sometimes makes him a crude, groping, bullying jerk.
The production would be helped if the roughhousing and emotional intensity were dialed down a bit.
This is “L’Elisir d’Amore” as a proto-verismo opera.
Some restraint would have been welcome, too, in the conducting of Mr. Benini, who showed a tendency toward hard-driving tempos in the bustling ensemble scenes.
Yet though Belcore is a self-absorbed lady’s man, Mr. Kwiecien sometimes makes him a crude, groping, bullying jerk.
The production would be helped if the roughhousing and emotional intensity were dialed down a bit.
This is “L’Elisir d’Amore” as a proto-verismo opera.
Some restraint would have been welcome, too, in the conducting of Mr. Benini, who showed a tendency toward hard-driving tempos in the bustling ensemble scenes.
For a demonstration of dramatic naturalness and stylish bel canto singing, there was the Italian baritone Ambrogio Maestri as Dr. Dulcamara.
When he arrived in his colorful wagon to peddle his elixir (actually cheap Bordeaux), Mr. Maestri’s Dulcamara, a portly, rumpled giant of a man, looked eccentric enough to be believable.
His voice is big, beefy and never forced; he sings with sly phrasing and droll comic timing.
When he arrived in his colorful wagon to peddle his elixir (actually cheap Bordeaux), Mr. Maestri’s Dulcamara, a portly, rumpled giant of a man, looked eccentric enough to be believable.
His voice is big, beefy and never forced; he sings with sly phrasing and droll comic timing.
Over all, this psychologically charged take on “Elisir” is fascinating.
On Monday, when Adina finally admitted to Nemorino that she loved him, a wide-eyed and out-of-control Mr. Polenzani grabbed Ms. Netrebko and gave her a smothering kiss. The audience applauded and cheered.
Ms. Netrebko and Mr. Kwiecien will be back on opening night next season. No, not another Donizetti, but a new production of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin.” Thank goodness.
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