Met Opera: From Greek tragedy to Elizabethan times

            Met Opera´s productions seen  simultaneously via satellite at the Teatro El Nacional, organized by Pupi Sebastiani´s Fundación Beethoven, have become an indispensable way for  local audiences to experience first-rate opera with artists that mainly haven´t been at the Colón. The final two of the 2015-16 season have been seen now, always on certain Saturdays at 2 pm.  In October starts the 2016-17 activity, but many of those that have been appreciated in the recent series will be programmed again later this year at the Auditorium of the Fundación.

            The operas I am reviewing reflect the enormous variety of the world of opera both musically and dramatically. Gaetano Donizetti´s "Roberto Devereux" immerses us in the Late Elizabethan period through the lens of bel canto. Richard Strauss´  "Elektra" transports us to the dark world of Greek tragedy in Mycenaean times but with a Freudian twist.

             The prolific Donizetti wrote about 70 operas, buffo or dramatic. Success came only with his 34^th, "Anna Bolena" (1830). It became his first to be staged in Paris and London and was followed by "Maria Stuarda" (1834) and "Roberto Devereux" (1837) to form the so-called trilogy of British Queens. After WWII there was a revival of bel canto and Maria Callas was essential in this trend: her Bolena set a pattern that was followed by  great artists.

            Beverly Sills sang all three  and here Adelaida Negri performed that feat with her own company. It is sad to consign that the  Colón only offered "Anna Bolena" in 1970 and ignored the other two. But the Met has presented all three with a great artist unknown here: Sondra Radvanovsky.

            "Roberto Devereux", with libretto by Salvatore Cammarano based on a tragedy by François Ancelot ("Elisabeth d´Angleterre") , recounts a dramatic episode of the aging (69) Queen Elizabeth I.  The year, 1601. Devereux, Earl of Essex, was the favorite of Elizabeth but theirs was a conflictive relationship. The Virgin Queen was called so because she never married, though she did have liaisons. Essex was brilliant, charming, in war courageous to the point of temerity; however,  he lacked judgment and that was to prove fatal. Probably the Queen´s lover, he quarreled with her publicly and opposed her principal minister, Lord Robert Cecil. After failing to win a crucial battle against Scotland´s Tyrone, he plotted against the Queen, was tried and executed.

            The political facts are lightly touched upon in Cammarano´s libretto; instead, the accent is put on Robert´s affair with Sarah, Duchess of Nottingham (and the Duke is Robert´s best friend!). Cecil wants Robert´s death, but the Queen will only agree when she has the evidence of her lover´s romantic treason. In the final scene, the old monarch falls to pieces in desperation.  The music is prime bel canto, with plenty of lovely melodies, although less elaborate than "Anna Bolena".

            None of the four principals has ever come to BA; any or all should be warmly welcomed in the future. Radvanovsky is marvelous, both in her singing and acting: a vast register, fine timbre, total control of florid passages, but foremost a moving transformation in the final half hour when she throws her wig away and is no longer a queen but a wretched old woman in total anguish. As her rival Sarah we have Elina Garança, to my mind the best mezzosoprano in the present scene: beauty, poise, perfect voice and style, expressive but contained.

            Tenor Matthew Polenzani has a sweet timbre and a firm technique; he transmits the mercurial quality of Essex. And baritone Mariusz Kwiecien gives us the two aspects of his role faithfully: he defends his friend to his own risk until he knows Robert´s treason and then becomes his infuriated enemy.  The other parts are well taken. Conductor Maurizio Benini is a specialist in the genre, and of course both chorus and orchestra are excellent.

            Sir David McVicar´s staging respects time and place and it looks handsome (he is also stage designer; costumes by Moritz Junge). One fault: voyeurism (witnesses where there should be none).

            "Elektra" is Strauss´ undisputed masterpiece: his most audacious and intense score and the best one-acter in history. The libretto by Hugo Von Hoffmannsthal, based on Sophocles,  makes it clear that we are seeing the ideal example of Freudian Electra complex. The main role is the longest and most exhausting of all in opera.

            Unfortunately Patrice Chéreau´s production (his last before dying) continually contradicts the libretto from the very beginning. Here voyeurism is stretched to the extreme and makes nonsense of most scenes, and apart from that he ruins the finale: it is basic that Klytämnestra and Aegisth (the assassins of Agamemnon) should be killed offstage, but here they die in full presence of the audience; and Electra doesn´t die, when the whole point is that once vengeance is accomplished she has no reason to live.

            But the three leading feminine parts save the day. I hadn´t had the opportunity to hear and see Nina Stemme, considered one of the great dramatic sopranos nowadays: and she certainly is. The voice is firm, the musicality strong, she acts vividly and has the stamina to stay the course. The veteran Waltraud Meier was a subtle Klytämnestra and Adrianne Pieczonka a radiant Chruysothemis. Only the Orest of Eric Owens seemed poorly cast. Esa-Pekka Salonen´s conducting was professional but short on impact; the enormous orchestra didn´t seem so.

For Buenos Aires Herald