{"id":83596,"date":"2016-01-09T23:31:35","date_gmt":"2016-01-09T22:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gbopera.it\/?p=83596"},"modified":"2016-01-09T23:31:35","modified_gmt":"2016-01-09T22:31:35","slug":"new-york-metropolitan-opera-la-boheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.studioroldo.it\/gbopera\/new-york-metropolitan-opera-la-boheme\/","title":{"rendered":"New York, Metropolitan Opera: “La Boh\u00e8me”"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York, Metropolitan Opera, Season 2015 \/ 2016
\n<\/em>“LA BOH\u00c8ME”<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>Opera in four acts, libretto Giuseppe Giacosa & Luigi Illica, from\u00a0Sc\u00e8nes de la Vie de Boh\u00e8me <\/em>by\u00a0Henri Murger.
\nMusic by \u00a0Giacomo Puccini
\n<\/strong>Mim\u00ec\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0 MARIA AGRESTA
\nRodolfo\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0 BRYAN HYMEL
\nMusetta\u00a0\u00a0<\/em> SUSANNA PHILLIPS
\nMarcello\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0 QUINN KELSEY
\nColline\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0 KIHWAN SIM
\nSchaunard\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0 DAVID PERSHALL
\nBenoit\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0 JOHN DEL CARLO
\nParpignol\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0 DANIEL CLARK SMITH
\nAlcindoro\u00a0\u00a0<\/em> JOHN DEL CARLO
\nOrchestra & Chorus Metropolitan Opera
\nConductor \u00a0Dan Ettinger
\n<\/strong>Chorus Master Daniel Palumbo
\n<\/strong>Director & Stage Franco Zeffirelli
\n<\/strong>Costumes Peter J. Hall
\n<\/strong>Lighting Gil Wechsler
\n<\/strong>New York, January 6, 2016
\n\"Boheme,<\/a><\/em>La Boh\u00e8me <\/em>has been given at the Met far more often than any other opera, and the current, ancient Franco Zeffirelli<\/strong> production (which replaced a different Franco Zeffirelli production) has probably been put on the stage more often than any other show. Certainly, it is a painless way to introduce new singers to the Met in roles already familiar to them\u2014thus, in this mid-season performance, the season\u2019s second cast featured house debuts performing Mim\u00ec and Colline. But the whole overelaborate, overpopulated production has become mechanical and joyless; nor is it as popular as it once was: There were clumps of empty seats here and there. Yet if old-timers were weary, the young audience to whom the current Met management plays its hands appeared to be happy, puzzling (I overheard them) during \"Boheme,<\/a>intermissions which character corresponded to the more familiar ones in Rent.\u00a0<\/em>For old opera lovers, there was the singing, across the board at as high a level as it is likely to reach all year.\u00a0Maria Agresta<\/strong>, who sings just about everything around Europe (Norma and Elvira in Paris, Violetta, Desdemona and Mimi all over Italy and Austria, the Oberto <\/em>Leonora whenever it is revived, even Donna Elvira in the Verona Arena), was making her long-awaited Met debut. I was particularly eager to hear this singer and was not disappointed. The voice is of a thrilling size, undaunted by the size of the theater, and a warm, Italian color, a true spinto in the Tebaldi-Gencer-Millo line. Her acting is reserved in her first, flirtatious scenes\u2014Mim\u00ec may be poor as a church mouse, but she\u2019s a lady church mouse\u2014more intimate as their relationship intensifies. Her phrasing is natural and with her \u201cprimo bacio dell\u2019aprile,\u201d the sun shone in her upper register, as it should. Too, she is a pretty woman, robust for a Mim\u00ec unless one remembers Caball\u00e9 in the part. I hope she will sing many more interesting roles for us soon.\u00a0Bryan\"Boheme,<\/a> Hymel<\/strong> made his Met debut as Berlioz\u2019 En\u00e9e, and he has indicated his preference for that repertory with his highly successful \u201cHero\u00efque\u201d album; to give him Pinkerton or Rodolfo seems either a waste or luxury casting, depending on your point of view. He certainly makes a robust and handsome poet for any Mim\u00ec to rest her head on, and he sang ardent, arching phrases with an unforced top, though lacking an ideal liquidity of sound. \u00a0It was impressive enough that he seemed unintimidated by his Marcello, the equally robust and broad-shouldered Quinn Kelsey<\/strong>. The Hawaiian baritone is the real deal we have lacked for so long, the possessor of a warm, superbly produced and Italianate sound that filled the house effortlessly. There is no baritone role in the Verdi canon that I would not be thrilled to hear Mr. Kelsey take on. As a background to the soaring musings of Mr. Hymel, he was like a plush sofa on which the Hymel tiger-cat \"Boheme,<\/a>could curl up and purr. I wish Agresta, Hymel and Kelsey were singing the Met\u2019s Simon Boccanegra <\/em>this spring; they\u2019d bring it to life.\u00a0The other Bohemians were David Pershall<\/strong>, a lively Schaunard, and Kihwan Sim<\/strong>, a Korean bass making his debut as Colline. Mr. Kim seemed a trifle stiff as an actor and a bit stiff in the serio-comic farewell to his coat, but he proved his worth with a dark, distinguished sound of notable size. Benoit and Alcindoro, doubled in this production, were performed by veteran buffo <\/em>John Del Carlo<\/strong>, whose voice still permits him to sing rather than (like so many Benoits) squeak and babble through the comedy. \u00a0Susanna Phillips<\/strong>, better known for her Mozart and Handel, returned to Musetta, the role of her Met debut. Hers is a nicely etched performance, not too whorish, not too prim, using her fioritura<\/em> to tease and annoy at the same time. Her little prayer at the end of the opera made a pleasing effect.\u00a0The overpopulated Zeffirelli shenanigans went off with an impressive lack of spontaneity, but unlike the leads, they\u2019ve been doing this all autumn. Alcindoro\u2019s return (with shoes) to pick up Musetta\u2019s bill has been, for some reason, written out of the show, or else I was looking somewhere else.\u00a0Dan Ettinger<\/strong> led the orchestra and in the first two acts seemed not always perfectly in sync with his singers, who were perhaps less well rehearsed than the pre-\"Boheme,<\/a>Christmas crowd.\u00a0One unusual pleasure, here as in the other older productions at the Met is that the singers perform their arias from the middle of the enormous stage and not poised on the edge of the orchestra pit. The extra distance gave none of this cast any problems of audibility or clarity. I do not know if it is the insecurity of younger singers or the peevishness of directors or the insistence of conductors that causes the edge-of-the-stage phenomenon to occur, as it does, whatever the opera.\u00a0Photo Ken Howard\/ Metropolitan Opera<\/em><\/p>\n

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