Karen Almond
Beethoven’s solely opera, composed and twice revised as Napoleon swept throughout Europe, stays the one instance of the “rescue opera” in the usual repertoire, a style that owes a lot to the post-aristocratic, republican idealism of the French Revolution. Its heroine Leonore disguises herself as a boy and takes the title “Fidelio,” embedding herself among the many jail’s workers to rescue her husband Florestan, a political prisoner, unjustly and illegally held by Don Pizarro. In the long run, her braveness, steadfastness, and advantage see husband and spouse delivered from their predicament and tyranny forged right down to the rejoicing of all. It’s the Liberal opera, par excellence.
The libretto by Joseph Sonnleithner is sparse sufficient in its setting and characterizations to go well with each technology’s wants. The struggling Florestan might be your Gramsci or Navalny; Don Pizarro’s jail your Dachau or Sednaya. And who’s Don Pizzaro however each different despot from then and now who has wielded human struggling as a method of development? By way of all of it there may be Beethoven’s rating: righteous, ennobling, and heartbreaking in its tenderness and optimism. It falls on each the director and conductor, then, to make this relevance rousing, remodeling it into real inspiration for its viewers. The present run of Fidelio at The Metropolitan Opera was partially profitable in executing this transformation.
This fifth revival of Jürgen Flimm’s manufacturing was initially scheduled for the canceled 2020 – 2021 season to correspond with the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s beginning. Directed right here by Gina Lapinski, the manufacturing finds itself contending with a fair sorrier state of issues than it did when it debuted within the Fall of 2000. Units by Robert Israel and costumes by Florence von Gerkan transverse the midcentury; the guards’ rifles and the prisoners’ vivid, white uniforms counsel the Jim Crow South whereas the heap of footwear in Florestan’s dungeon recall Nazi focus camps.
All through the primary Act, the manufacturing makes clear the unsettling permeability between the opera’s home and the carceral areas. Jacquino proposes marriage to his erstwhile sweetheart as they polish armaments. Prisoners’ arms dangle out of their cells, accepting bread from Marzelline as she blithely goals of “ruhe stiller Häuslichkeit” with Fidelio and applauding Rocco after his spiel about establishing a adequate nest egg earlier than marriage. The uneasy coexistence between these two areas, delineated by the flowerpots resulting in Rocco’s door, provides a potent cost to a lot of the primary Act, reflecting the pervasiveness of apathy amid injustice.
The staging of the dungeon sequence is frustratingly literal, as Florestan’s ecstatic imaginative and prescient of sunshine flooding into his grave is defined away by Leonore opening his cell door above. A lot of the dialogue on this scene has been condensed, rearranged, or excised completely. Florestan doesn’t beg for water, nor does he have a quick flash of recognition upon seeing the face of his jailor’s assistant; these adjustments, together with many of the principals’ understated supply, made the scene extra environment friendly but betrayed an general mistrust of melodrama. In my opinion, these usually are not mawkish moments however crucial entry factors by means of which the viewers deepens their emotional reference to the prisoner and his plight.
Within the closing scene, the dungeon’s darkness makes means for a technicolor blue sky, and women of their Driving Miss Daisy-best chase Don Pizarro off with daggers of their gloved arms. The prisoners and townsfolk boogie because the guards hoist the bloodied former warden upon his equestrian statue and Marzelline tearily strews roses. Kitsch comes up in opposition to the messiness of regime change. We’re neither totally redeemed, nor are we totally implicated.
Karen Almond
Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki made her long-awaited return to the Met after main The Rake’s Progress in 2022. On opening night time, the length of her absence was audible. She coaxed a mighty sound from The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra on the expense of clear dynamic distinction between the piece’s lighter, comedian moments and its quasi-symphonic passages.
Certainly, her angular method to the anxious pulsations coursing by means of Marzelline’s “O wär ich schon mit dir vereint” threatened to overwhelm the delicacy of the vocal line. There have been persistent coordination points between the pit and the singers in most of the arias, and there have been moments the place they seemed to be working off totally different tempos. The general lack of finesse urged a restricted rehearsal window. Mälkki will little question be in finer (and extra rehearsed) type when she returns subsequent spring for Innocence, one other Saariaho premiere for the corporate.
The night’s principal supply of inspiration was soprano Lise Davidsen as Leonore, making her closing stage appearances earlier than her maternity depart. Although visibly pregnant, Davidsen dealt with the intricacies of the blocking with none noticeable changes, clambering up and down the cell block partitions and the ladder resulting in the dungeon. Vocally, she was simply as spectacular. Her soprano was safe and scorching within the roles’ larger reaches, which served her effectively all through “Abscheulicher! Wo eilst du hin?”
There was a velvety heat to the “Komm, Hoffnung” part of the identical aria, revealing kaleidoscopic tones at the same time as she hovered at a piano. And her ascent as much as its closing B was genuinely thrilling. Elsewhere, she introduced a transferring tenderness in Act II’s “O namenlose Freude.” There was a lot dialogue over Davidsen’s performing talents, or lack thereof. Definitely, she is snug with this position’s dramatic calls for, and it confirmed. Her sheepishness as Fidelio was amusing, and her moments of righteousness learn as true.
The challenges of singing Florestan are many; past the issue of his music, the viewers spends a lot of the primary Act awaiting information of him, so when he does arrive, expectations are excessive. As Florestan, British tenor David Butt Phillip, in his first main position right here, didn’t meet these expectations. He confirmed that he has the quantity to fill the Met, however not a lot else. For all his tenor’s heft, its lack of brightness lessens its influence. His opening crescendo in “Gott! Welch Dunkel hier!” was well-controlled, however few of his succeeding phrases did a lot to convey Florestan’s grief or religion or convey out the nuances that make this aria so affecting. I’m, maybe, too accustomed to the Jonas Kaufmann faculty of trembling, traumatized Florestans, however I discovered Butt Phillip’s portrayal to be fairly clean.
With this efficiency, German bass René Pape as Rocco broke himself out of a doghouse of his personal homophobic making, if the viewers’s enthusiastic reception was any indicator. However for a couple of pale low notes, his instrument stays formidable, and his colourful, meticulous dealing with of the textual content made for a jocular “Hat man nicht auch Gold beineben.”
Karen Almond
Polish bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny relished Don Pizarro’s maliciousness, stomping across the stage and snarling his means by means of “Ha, welch ein Augenblick.” His steel-edged sound additional added to the character’s grotesqueness. Danish bass Stephen Milling was a dignified Don Fernando, even when his voice was not fairly as potent as Pape and Konieczny’s.
Chinese language soprano Ying Fang was totally charming and convincing because the oblivious Marzelline. Her gentle, gleaming high and creamy center vary unfurled throughout her aria. Her and Davidsen’s sopranos wove out and in of one another’s within the opening bars of “Mir ist so wunderbar” like alternating gold and silver hyperlinks in a sequence. Magnus Dietrich made a profitable Met debut as Jaquino. His interesting tenor contrasted properly along with his character’s simmering rage. Lindemann Younger Artist Jonghyun Park and Jeongcheol Cha introduced supple, rounded sounds to the roles of First and Second Prisoners, respectively.
Led by Refrain Director Tilman Michael, the Metropolitan Opera Refrain equipped gravity and pathos to “O welche lust,” the Prisoners’ Refrain, even when among the consonant cut-offs weren’t as clear as one would love. The ultimate refrain was ecstatic and stirring, awakening the animating results of Beethoven’s rating.
