The Metropolitan Opera’s manufacturing type from the Nineteen Seventies by way of the Nineties might greatest be described as lavishly (and expensively) sensible. Audiences enthusiastically applauded works luxuriously mounted by Franco Zeffirelli, who embraced primarily Italian opera, and Otto Schenk, who took care of German opera—most notably Wagner’s masterpieces. Since Peter Gelb took over in 2006, nonetheless, there’s been a decided shift towards a sparer, cheaper, extra up to date aesthetic, one which hasn’t all the time been welcomed by conservative Met audiences.
After Luc Bondy’s much-reviled Tosca, which changed Zeffirelli’s, was dropped, Gelb admitted he won’t ever drop the Italian director-designer’s beloved La Bohème and Turandot. The flop of Robert Lepage’s scandalously costly Ring cycle probably additionally satisfied the Met that it ought to cancel a provocative new manufacturing of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Stefan Herheim and as a substitute revive Schenk’s 1993 model in addition to his 1977 Tannhäuser. This season, after an absence of 11 years, November’s scrumptious revival of Richard Strauss’s Arabella once more reminded audiences how a lot they miss Schenk, who died early this yr at 94.
Arabella, which premiered in 1933, is the sixth and last work created by Strauss with Hugo von Hofmannsthal, one among opera’s most profitable composer-librettist partnerships. Of their works that additionally embrace Elektra and Die Frau ohne Schatten, Arabella most resembles Der Rosenkavalier, one other romantic comedy of manners taking part in out among the many higher echelons of Viennese society. Depend Waldner’s household, nonetheless, has suffered monetary reverses and is desperately making an attempt to carry on by discovering a wealthy husband for Arabella, their eldest daughter. In a unusual Hofmannsthal twist, the youthful daughter, Zdenka, has been launched to all as a boy named Zdenko in a money-saving scheme.
Within the first act, Strauss, who relished composing for feminine voices, provides one among his most ravishing duets to the soprano sisters who each yearn for “der Richtige” (the Proper One), and by the opera’s finish, after tragi-comic problems, each will discover their superb mate.
Later within the opera, Arabella duets with Mandryka, and they’re among the many most shifting moments in all of Strauss. Though Arabella shares Der Rosenkavalier’s fondness for waltzes, it has by no means achieved the frequent repertoire standing of its fashionable predecessor. Hofmannsthal’s prolix libretto options many making an attempt pages of sumptuously accompanied stark parlando, helpfully translated by the Met’s back-of-the-seat titles.
A problem for performances of Arabella stays discovering the best soprano for its title position, an alluring magnificence desired by all males however whose sensible self-possession leads her to seek out her many suitors unworthy till she encounters Mandryka, an outsider with whom she immediately feels an unbreakable bond. The Met’s premiere manufacturing within the outdated home served as a showcase for notable Straussians Eleanor Steber and Lisa Della Casa. After an absence of almost twenty years, the opera lastly returned in 1983 in Schenk’s placing new manufacturing for kiri te kanawa. Practically 20 years would move earlier than the corporate discovered its subsequent “Proper One”: Renée Fleming.
Subsequent Met revivals arrived with out their initially deliberate soprano: by 2014, the elusive Anja Harteros had canceled all her U.S. appearances, and in her place we heard Malin Byström, whereas this season’s revival was deliberate for Lise Davidsen, who dropped out to take care of twins born in June. In between feedings, she’s making ready her first Isolde, due in Barcelona in January, adopted in March by Yuval Sharon’s new Met Tristan.
In Davidsen’s absence, the corporate turned to Rachel Willis-Sørense,n who in her first-ever Arabella gave the best efficiency of her thus-far uneven Met profession, which final season included a wayward Leonora in Verdi’s Il Trovatore. The primary act discovered the American soprano nonetheless nervously discovering her footing within the duet with Zdenka and her introspective monologue “Mein Elemer.” However when she entered the Coachman’s Ball resplendent in all white, the heretofore chilly Willis-Sørensen melted most winningly as she was launched to Tomasz Konieczny as her Mandryka.
Her commanding Arabella clearly knew learn how to deal with males, as we noticed in touching farewells to her three unsuccessful suitors, whom the Met solid with particular care, every making their Met debuts. Ben Brady suavely pivoted from September’s bravura Rossini in Philadelphia to November’s charming Strauss as Lamoral, whereas Ricardo José Rivera’s randy Dominik didn’t permit him to show the actually spectacular baritone we’ve skilled in Teatro Nuovo’s summer season revivals.
Given one of the best alternative of the three, Evan LeRoy Johnson almost stole the present with a handsomely ringing tenor as Elemer. Strauss is kinder to him than to Matteo, Zdenka’s hoodwinked suitor, whose cruelly excessive music Pavol Breslik tackled with noticeable effort.
Greatest identified for her Handel, English soprano Louise Alder made her extremely profitable Met debut as an achingly weak Zdenka, dashing in her male garb whereas hovering with hidden love for the distracted Matteo. Younger French soprano Julie Roset, within the night’s fifth debut, fortunately made Fiakermilli’s matches of coloratura frivolity much less annoying than they are often.
Who knew that Karen Cargill was such an completed comedienne? As the women’s irrepressible mom Adelaide, the Scottish mezzo dithered and flirted with zest, leaving Brindley Sherratt, sonorous as her husband Waldner, to fuss and fume amusingly.
Like Willis-Sørensen, Konieczny discovered Mandryka a most congenial position, a minimum of since his acclaimed debut as Alberich in 2019. Although his pungent, craggy bass-baritone might by no means be known as lovely, he readily took on his position’s punishingly excessive tessitura whereas his shyly decided courting of Arabella simply received over each her and the viewers. His infatuation clearly introduced out one of the best in Willis-Sørensen, whose voice bloomed as he forgave her alleged indiscretions and ended the night in self-confident triumph as she exclaimed to her future husband: “I can not assist it. Take me as I’m!”
Dylan Evans skillfully revived Schenk’s busy however pleasingly naturalistic staging, however the preferred stars of the revival had been the dazzlingly detailed, stage-filling Cinemascope units of the director’s frequent collaborator Günther Schneider-Siemssen, abetted by entrancing costumes by four-time Oscar winner Milena Canonero. Earlier than each the primary and second acts, nakedly inviting applause, the curtain rose in silence. Solely after the grateful ovations did conductor Nicholas Carter start Strauss’s bustling music. The Australian maestro who has been so spectacular on the Met in Brett Dean’s Hamlet and Britten’s Peter Grimes drew fantastically assured taking part in from his orchestra, although at occasions his brisk tempi rushed the singers, significantly Willis-Sørensen, who clearly wished extra leisure to savor Arabella’s grateful music.
The Met eschews an version sanctioned by Strauss that eliminates one intermission by becoming a member of the second and third acts, which makes for a virtually four-hour opera. Nonetheless, this season’s contemporary and vivid solid makes Arabella an particularly entertaining enterprise, one which shall be proven stay in HD in theaters worldwide on 22 November.
