![Waltraut Meier (Sieglinde), Plácido Domingo (Siegmund) [Photo: Antoni Bofill]](http://www.operatoday.com/Meier_Domingo-ph-Bofill_pet.png)
15 Jun 2008
Plácido Domingo’s miraculous autumn
On the barren stage: a few chairs, a dark-gold hectoplasm projected on the wood panels of the acoustic chamber - nothing more.
Recently in Performances
Domingo Conducts Holdridge’s New Opera Dulce Rosa
Dulce Rosa, a brand new opera, had its world premiere Friday night, May 17, 2013 at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, California. It was produced by Los Angeles Opera, but staged in the smaller theater.
Verdi’s Falstaff at Glyndebourne
Richard Jones’ 2009 production of Verdi’s Falstaff translates the action from the first Elizabethan age to the start of the second.
Gareth John, Wigmore Hall
Baritone Gareth John is rapidly accumulating a war-chest of honours. Winner of the 2013 Kathleen Ferrier Award, he recently won the Royal Academy of Music Patrons’ Award and was presented the Silver Medal by the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
La bohème at ENO
This second revival of Jonathan Miller’s La bohème was the first time I had caught the production.
Rolando Villazón: Verdi (International Opera Stars Series 2013)
It’s Verdi’s bicentenary year and Rolando Villazón has two new CDs to plug — titled somewhat confusingly, ‘Villazón: Verdi’ and ‘Villazón’s Verdi’, the latter a ‘personal selection’ of favourite numbers performed by stars of the past and present.
Brahms Third in San Francisco
Nicola Luisotti and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra climbed out of the War Memorial pit, braved the wind whipped bay and held spellbound an audience at Cal Performances’ Zellerbach Auditorium at UC Berkeley.
Glyndebourne: Ariadne auf Naxos
Utterly mad but absolutely right — Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos started the Glyndebourne 2013 season with an explosion. Strauss could hardly have made his intentions more clear. Ariadne auf Naxos is not “about” Greek myth so much as a satire on art and the way art is made.
Wozzeck at ENO
“Man is an abyss. It makes one dizzy to look into it.” So utters Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, repeating what was also a recurring motif in the playwright’s own letters.
Mulhouse: Rare Britten Well Done
National Opera Company of the Rhine has marked this year’s Benjamin Britten celebration with a remarkably compelling, often gripping new production of the seldom-seen Owen Wingrave.
Frankfurt's Intriguing Idomeneo
Once upon a time, Frankfurt Opera had the baddest ass reputation in Germany as “the” cutting edge producer of must-see opera.
Rigoletto at Lyric Opera of Chicago
Productions of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto can serve as a vehicle for individual singers to make a strong impression and become afterward associated with specific roles in the opera.
Britten Sinfonia with Ian Bostridge
Just in case we were not aware that the evening’s programme was ‘themed’, the Britten Sinfonia designed a visual accompaniment to their musical exploration of night, sleep and dreams.
Aida, Manitoba Opera
Poor Aida! She never seems to have anything go her way.
Superlative singing: Don Carlo, Royal Opera House
Is it possible to upstage Jonas Kaufmann? Kaufmann was brilliant in this Verdi Don Carlo at the Royal Opera House, London, but the rest of the cast was so good that he was but first among equals. Don Carlo is a vehicle for stars, but this time the stars were everyone on stage and in the pit. Even the solo arias, glorious as they are, grow organically out of perfect ensemble. This was a performance that brought out the true beauty of Verdi's music.
Sarah Connolly: French Song at Wigmore Hall
The big names were absent: Duparc, D’Indy, Debussy, Ravel … and while Fauré, Chausson, Roussel and several members of Les Six put in an appearance, in less than familiar guises, this survey of French song of the early 20th century and interwar years deliberately took us on a journey through infrequently travelled terrain.
Rare restoration: Handel’s Esther 1720
Composed between 1718 and 1720, Handel’s Esther is sometimes described as the ‘first English Oratorio’, but is in fact a hybrid form, mixing elements of oratorio, masque, pastoral and opera.
The Damnation of Faust, London
Hector Berlioz's légende dramatique, La Damnation de Faust, exists somewhere between cantata and opera. Berlioz's flexible attitude to dramatic form made the piece unworkable on the stages of early 19th century Paris and his music is so vivid that you wonder whether the piece needs staging at all.
Elizabeth Connell Memorial Concert, St John's Smith Square
St. John’s Smith Square was the site of Elizabeth Connell’s final London concert, intended as a farewell to London on her moving to Australia. It was rendered ultimately final by her unexpected death.
Aida with all the Trimmings, Even a Blue Silk Elephant!
With the building of the Suez Canal, Egypt became more interesting to Western Europeans. Khedive Ismail Pasha wanted a hymn by Verdi for the opening of a new opera house in Cairo, but the composer said he did not write occasional pieces.
Die Zauberflöte, Royal Opera
Back for its fourth revival, David McVicar’s 2003 production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte has much charm, beauty and artistry.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Performances
The direction was self-managed by the singing company with very few “Italian-style rehearsals” (the pun is reportedly due to Plácido Domingo himself). Despite lacking costumes and props, the bodies kept moving and interacting throughout, so that, in the end, the chairs remained empty most of the time. The “Italian-style” label was also applicable to the tenor’s German diction, with consonants softened and vowels broadly open; probably more gracefully that any native singer would, yet not marring the text’s understanding. Other than a handful of specialists, actually, who really understands Wagner’s language? Ask any educated German for confirmation…
A 67-year-old Siegmund would make news anyway, but Domingo’s is simply a miracle for clarion tones, power and tenderness. This February at La Scala, where he sang the title-role in Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac, I had noticed his intelligence in overcoming the disadvantages of age through the frugal management of his resources until the final act. This was a different case, since Siegmund disappears after Act 2, so no such contrivances were needed and his stage charisma could deploy right from the start in a perfect combination of acting skills and velvety vocal color.
Nobly pathetic when retelling the mishaps of his family, he unsheathed sarcasm and proud challenge during his confrontations with Hundig, conjured delicate emotions in the hymn to Spring and warlike excitement in his appeal to the sword (“Nothung! Nothung!”) at the end of Act 1. Even Evelyn Herlitzius, a mercurial Brünnhilde of no particular firmness in her high tones, could not escape his manly spell during their duet on the battlefield in Act 2. With her beautiful central range, perfect intonation, and the coy passion of certain feminine motions, Waltraud Meier’s Sieglinde proved a worth partner for the hero; as a duly hateful Hundig, young René Pape could well abuse her with his marble bass, but could hardly shake her soft dignity.
Equally well matched (so to say) was the godlike couple in the Walhalla: Alan Held, the experienced Wagnerian from Washburn, Illinois, made an embittered but quite not unsympathetic Wotan, while Jane Henschel was a Fricka of inflexible decision and generous vocal means. In the patrol of Valkyries, Michelle Marie Cook (Gerhilde) and Gemma Coma-Alabert (Rossweisse) emerged for their burnished instruments, while brave Inés Moraleda (Grimgerde) reaped additional applause and flowers from the audience because of her noticeably advanced pregnancy. Conductor Sebastian Weigle, the home orchestra and everybody else were fêted much beyond the Liceu’s usual restraint; as to Don Plácido, his (purposely?) belated appearance for the curtain calls unleashed a standing ovation that was little short of mutinous.
Carlo Vitali