Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test

The Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test is our personal and highly opinionated Commuter's Guide to New York theater and cultural events, with an emphasis on Broadway and Off-Broadway theatrical productions. The test is simple: is an event worth the always expensive, time consuming, and too often horrendous struggle to commute to New York City from New Jersey, Long Island, Upstate New York or Connecticut? Only truly great or near-great performances and productions may meet this stiff challenge!

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Location: Princeton, New Jersey, United States

James Camner is an antiquarian dealer of autographs, manuscripts and printed music and books of Opera, Classical Music, Theater, Dance, and Film, as well as a published author of more than 10 books on the performing arts including "How to Enjoy Opera" (Simon and Schuster), "The Great Opera Stars in Historic Photographs" (Dover), "Stars of American Musical Theater in Historic Photographs" (Dover - with Stanley Appelbaum); was for over 20 years a reviewer for Fanfare Magazine and has written feature articles and reviews for Opera News.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Le Comte Ory, an opera by Rossini at the Metropolitan Opera.

We just returned home from the weekend in New York and this is our first access to a keyboard. Just as I was composing my thoughts, the phone rang and it was my friend Carl, who used to work at the Met and who has been going to opera performances going back 60 years - a huge fan of Milanov, and a a fan and friend of Joan Sutherland. Carl got right to the point saying that he had heard the Comte Ory broadcast (he was sitting wtih a score) and found the singing so rapturously beautiful that he had to put his score down and just listen. Carl felt that it was one of greatest performances he's ever heard, and I have to agree, in fact, I would say that it was the finest ensemble singing (more than a duet) that I've heard in bel canto since the Normas back in 1972 with Sutherland, Horne and Bergonzi.

No, the opera is not first rate Rossini, and an aria from one of Rossini's French operas should have been interpolated for Joyce Di Donato (a more confident music team might have done so, a Gui, Toscanini, or Serafin would have...) and the business about staging the opera is over fussy and unnecessary, but that's it, the only possible criticisms for what was a historically great performance at the Metropolitan Opera.

The production is so happy and bright, sorry no neo-Nazi outfits, but the chorus dressed in lovely, colorful costumes, and the stage movement always clever and funny. And then there is the Trio sung in bed, with Florez, Di Donato and Damrau. Imagine trying to stage this with Sutherland, Horne and Bergonzi, a hilarious notion. But nimble as Florez, Di Donato and Damrau are, they are not Broadway stars like Kelli O'Hara or Sutton Foster, who can sing and dance and move so gracefully, they are opera singers. So what Bartlett Sher has accomplished with them in that bed goes beyond anything I've ever witnessed at an opera house. As far as I'm concerned, they can put his statue in the Met foyer for his feat of making them move like members of Pilobolus, the dance company. That trio is one of the most singluar memories I've had in nearly 50 years of going to the Met. Remembering those carping, insufficient reviews in the papers and magazines, why wasn't more ink devoted to this trio? When has anyone seen anyhing like it before? The achievement is historic, and so is the singing.

Diana Damrau - I had been so impressed with her Rosina, but then her Konstanze was a let down for me. So was her Lucia. Maybe it's Rossini? Maybe it's Sher, maybe it's the superior conducting, maybe it's singing with Florez, but whatever the reason, she gave a performance for the ages, funny, clever, with spectacular high notes and coloratura.

Florez - he used head voice yesterday, he didn't hammer out high notes from the chest (he did it some, but not in the big trio), he sang with exquisite artistry and taste. I've not heard another tenor half as good in this kind of music. Di Donato, what charm! What assurance! She's been mentioned as the successor to Marilyn Horne, and she is technically, but she's got gifts that should take her in directions that Horne couldn't go.

This is absolutely not to be missed. Le Comte Ory may not be The Ring, but when it's served up like this, it's just as as worth the effort to get to. Broadway Bridge and Tunnel Test Grade A+

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