Back in March, many people thought the shutdown would last two or three weeks, which seemed an eternity. At the Metropolitan Opera, a run of Werther (Massenet) was set to begin on March 16. The company canceled the first five performancesβof six. But the sixth was left uncanceled. See what hope dwelt in breasts back then?
In response to the initial cancellations, Joyce DiDonato, the American mezzo-soprano, did something neat. She was to sing Charlotte in Werther, with Piotr BeczaΕa, the Polish tenor, in the title role. Shut out of the opera house, DiDonato invited BeczaΕa into her apartment, for a livestream. They sang excerpts from the opera, accompanied by a piano and a harp. I believe this was the first livestream of what would become a world of livestreams.
βSince we canβt sing on Monday night,β DiDonato told the online audience, βwe thought, βLetβs get together in this salon,β like they used to do in the old daysβwhich we might have to do in the new days, too.β
Not long after, the Met canceled the rest of the 2019β20 season. Around June 1, they canceled the first half of the 2020β21 season. In September, they announced the cancellation of the entire season.
But the Met has not been idle. On April 25, they produced an βat-home gala,β featuring more than forty performers, wherever they lived, or happened to be. Nightly, they have been streaming performances of the past: performances of complete operas. They also produce a series called βMet Stars Live in Concert.β These concerts air on Saturday afternoons, and cost $20 to watch. They remain watchable for a periodβtwo weeks or soβthereafter. This is a way for the Met to stay connected to its public, as Peter Gelb, the companyβs general manager, has said. Is this important?
I remember when New York City Opera decided to βgo darkβ for a season, about ten years ago. Some people warned that this could have very bad consequences for the company: out of sight, out of mind, you know. I was skeptical. The company had been around since 1943! It was a fixture! Surely it could sit out a season, to get its act together. But, you know? That dark season did have a baleful effect on the company.
Last June, I was podcasting with George F. Will, and one of the questions that arose was: Should there be a rump baseball season, something cobbled together to resemble a season? Will said he was of two minds. A short season capped by βa make-believe World Seriesβ would be βdeeply unsatisfying.β But then, βfor baseball to go seventeen, eighteen months without being in the national mind is a grave risk to a sport that has seen seven consecutive years of declining attendance.β
The Metropolitan Opera has been around, not since 1943, but since 1883. It can afford to sit out a season (one would think). Yet the need for the company to βstay connectedββnot to mention solventβis understandable.
The βMet Stars Live in Concertβ series has a host, Christine Goerke, the American soprano, who appears in a control room in New York City. She does her job with crispness, poise, and affability. Another American soprano, Beverly Sills, would have done this job, once upon a time. (She actually substituted for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.) Peter Gelb makes cameo appearances. During these concerts, the singers need breaks, and the Met fills them with videos of past performances by the singers. Or pre-taped interviews with them.
Sometimes there are glitchesβtechnical glitches, as when you Zoom with your great-aunt. These can be almost charming. In any event, the Met concerts are enjoyable affairs, something one could get used to, in pandemic times and non-.
The first concert brought us Jonas Kaufmann, from the Polling Abbey, in Bavariaβspecifically, from its library. By the look of it, it is a former library. There was not a book in sight. And when Kaufmann coughed or cleared his throat, between arias, the sound reverberated, there being nothing to block it: no books, no people, no anything. In any case, Polling Abbey makes a beautiful venue indeed.
Kaufmann is a German tenor, born in 1969, and he was accompanied by Helmut Deutsch, an Austrian pianist, born in 1945. Their program consisted of twelve opera arias, in Italian and French (not one in the singerβs native language). (Consider, too, that the pianistβs name is βGermanβ!) I donβt believe I had ever heard an arias-only concert, or recital, accompanied by piano. But these are strange times, in many respects. Orchestras are unavailable for arias and operasβand symphonies and tone poems.
The recital began with the two tenor arias from Pucciniβs Tosca: βRecondita armoniaβ and βE lucevan le stelle.β After the first ariaβwhich ends with a huge, warm, open βTosca, sei tu!ββit was very strange not to hear any applause. In the nba βbubble,β they piped in crowd noise. There is no such piping in at these Met concerts.
Kaufmann sang some common, famous ariasβsuch as the two from Toscaβand some less common, less famous ones, from operas that are seldom staged: from LβAfricaine (Meyerbeer), for example, and Le Cid (Massenet). He also sang one ariaβperhaps I should write βariaββthat is not from an opera but stands alone: βOmbra di nube,β by Licinio Refice, an Italian priest who was born in 1883, the Metβs founding year, and died in 1954. This beautiful, moving, and βold-timeyβ piece has been beloved of many opera stars over the years, beginning with Claudia Muzio and extending to RenΓ©e Fleming and Angela Gheorghiu. And Jonas Kaufmann.
His concert ended with the worldβs favorite aria, arguablyβcertainly its favorite tenor aria. (Did it used to be βVesti la giubba,β from Leoncavalloβs Pagliacci?) I am speaking of the hit from Pucciniβs Turandot: βNessun dorma.β
Helmut Deutsch is a real pro, able to make these aria accompaniments sound almost pianistic. On this occasion, he played two pieces by himself, giving Kaufmann a break. These were piano arrangements of one intermezzo, from Manon Lescaut (Puccini), and another, from Pagliacci. Amazingly, they sounded like piano pieces, in Deutschβs hands.
Jonas Kaufmann is an uneven singer, singing like an immortal on one night, and like an average Joe on the next. He is sometimes immortal and average on the same night. In Polling Abbey, he did some rough, shaky singing. He also did some beautiful, commanding singing. Always, he was brave. What I mean is this: He never tried to cover up any flaws or problems. If the music called for a high piano, thatβs what he tried. He did not bull through with a belt. If the music called for a diminuendoβhard to pull offβthatβs what he tried. Often, he succeeded in these things. He was willing to be βout there,β exposed. And always, he sang with operatic intelligence and emotion. I admired this imperfect, spotty outing a great deal.
Next in the series was RenΓ©e Fleming, coming to us from Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington, D.C. We are talking about the mansion in Georgetown. βDumbarton Oaksβ is a name in music, as well as in international affairs. In 1937, Mildred Bliss, who owned the house with her husband Robert, commissioned Stravinsky to write a piece for their thirtieth wedding anniversary. This became the Dumbarton Oaks Concerto. In 1944, the house was the site of a conference at which the United Nations was planned. The Blisses bequeathed the house to Harvard. And RenΓ©e Fleming sang fromβwhere else?βits music room.
She sang a mixed program of songs and arias. Her pianist was Robert Ainsley, an Englishman, who graduated from Cambridge with a degree in mathematics. Not a few British musicians have math or science degrees, from the top universities. This always astounds me.
The song that opened the program, however, needed no accompaniment. It is a new song, for voice alone, by John Corigliano, the veteran American composer. Called βAnd the People Stayed Home,β it sets a poem by Kitty OβMeara, a retired schoolteacher in Wisconsin. She wrote it early in the pandemic, and it βwent viral.β The poem speaks of all the things that people might do at home: read, rest, exercise, make art. Learn βnew ways of being.β It hopes that people will give up their βignorant ways,β and make βnew choices,β thus healing themselves and the world at large.
Why is the song unaccompanied? Corigliano has explained in a composerβs note: βI envisioned the performer as a single person at home.β
This song will not be to everyoneβs taste, as it was not to mine, at least on first hearing (and I write this as a lifelong Corigliano fan). I found it vaguely hortatory, somehow. I doubt it will be performed in the future, though these guesses can be foolhardy. But RenΓ©e Fleming? She was in good voiceβreally good voiceβcausing me to sit up and pay attention.
She proceeded with three arias by Handel. Years ago, in a public interview, I said to her, βTell me about you and Handel.β Modestly, she said she did not regard herself as a Handel singer, and she is not one, in a traditional sense. But she has sung a lot of Handel, and many of us will take her over βHandel singers.β She approaches him musically, and I think he would beam with pleasure.
Speaking of pleasure, the third of those arias was βEndless pleasure, endless love,β from Semele. Fleming ripped through its coloratura with ease. She injected her customary hint of jazz or blues. (She is American, after all.) She Flemingized her Handel, while keeping it Handel. She was, in short, herself: the extraordinary soprano we have known for decades.
Frankly, I did not know she sang this kind of music anymore. I thought she had transitioned into Broadway, cabaret, and the like. But obviously not. Listening to her, I thought of an old phrase from politics: βtan, rested, and ready.β
Fleming and Ainsley continued with a song by Hahn: βSi mes vers avaient des ailes.β Ainsley did some lovely, limpid playing here. They also presented two of the Auvergne songs, of Canteloube: βMalurous quβo uno fennoβ and βBaΓ―lΓ¨ro.β The second, in particular, was enrapturing. Fleming has plenty of voice left. She was βhooked up,β with that famous voice in just the right place.
I grant you that this was not the Metropolitan Operaβa big, cavernous houseβand that there was no orchestra to sing over, or through. This was a music room, and a piano. But still . . .
Manon is one of Flemingβs most famous rolesβin Massenetβs opera, not Pucciniβsβand she duly sang βAdieu, notre petite table.β Vocally, musically, and dramatically, it was compelling. Eventually, she got to Richard Strauss, who βhas always been my desert-island composer,β she told the audience. She added that the Marschallin, from Der Rosenkavalier, was her favorite role. Then she sang the Marschallinβs monologue.
What else? More arias, including one from La bohΓ¨me, but not Pucciniβs: Leoncavalloβs, which came out in 1897, a year after Pucciniβs. Leoncavalloβs sank. But at least Puccini wrote no Pagliacci.
Over and over, I wrote in my notes, βFlemingesque.β βSo Flemingesque.β You did not have to make any allowances, for age or circumstance or anything else. Is it possible to hear a Fleming recitalβan honest-to-goodness Fleming recitalβin 2020? Absolutely, yes.
Before she concluded her recital, she said that she wanted to sing βprobably the most popular song of the twentieth centuryβ: βOver the Rainbowβ (Arlen and Harburg). She sang it in a jazz arrangement by Rob Mathes. Fleming was a jazz singer in her youth, and she still is. She finished her recital with the Wiegenlied, the lullaby, of Brahms.
Actually, she finished with a statement. Singing is βthe most antique human expression,β she said. βAnd itβs safe to do at home, and itβs good for your health.β Hear, hear.
The third concert in the series brought two voices, not just one: those of Roberto Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak. Did the two singers observe proper social distancing? No, they were fairly intimate. They are husband and wife. Previously, Alagna was married to another singer, Angela Gheorghiu. They were known as the βLove Coupleβ and had their wedding ceremony on the stage of the Met. Presiding was the mayor of New York at the time, Rudy Giuliani. Interesting things have happened in the lives of all three since then.
Aleksandra Kurzak is a soprano from Poland. Alagna is a tenor from France, the son of Italian immigrants. He has two native languages, lucky guy. This is an especially lucky combo for an opera singer.
Ten years ago, I was at the Met for a Don Carlo (the Verdi opera). When Alagna sang the opening cry of βFontainebleau!β I looked at my program. I had not realized that the opera would be performed in its original French, not in Italian. But Alagna proceeded in Italianβitβs just that he had pronounced βFontainebleauβ Γ la franΓ§aise, which made me smile.
Alagna and Kurzak sang outdoors on the French Riviera. They were in Γze, about eight miles east of Nice, at the ChΓ’teau de la ChΓ¨vre dβOr. The concert took place on what looked like a terrace, with the Mediterranean, plus the mountains, in the background. The setting almost stole the show. The singers were accompanied by members of the Morphing Chamber Orchestra, who had morphed into a string quintet. One of the bass players sported a man-bun.
In a sense, this was a typical gala program, offering beloved duets and arias. It began with the love duet from Madama Butterfly (Puccini). After, the soprano said, βAh, what emotions!β The tenor said, βIt is very warm here. Please, have a beautiful drink and enjoy the show.β
Later, Alagna walked onto the stage, or the terrace, with a bottle of wine. You figured we would have a stretch of The Elixir of Love (Donizetti), which we did. (Kurzak and Alagna sang this music for the Metβs at-home gala, back in April, too.) The singers did some nice comic acting. At one point, Alagna departed from Donizetti, bursting into βItβs Now or Never,β the Elvis Presley song, derived from βO sole mio.β
It was not all fun βnβ games. The singers gave us a stretch from Cavalleria rusticana (Mascagni), which had high drama. Honestly, I felt shivers. We also had music from Otello (Verdi). First, Kurzak sang the Ave Maria, from Act IV. In the opera, things get very, very bad from there. But on the terrace, the action reverted to Act I, for the love duetβwhich was a happy development. Cooperatively, romantically, and stunningly, the sun set over the Mediterranean.
About the singing, I will make some general remarks. Aleksandra Kurzak was immaculate all evening long. She was in beautiful voice, she was utterly secure in technique, and she was near faultless in musical expression. Can we be candid here? The series is called βMet Stars Live in Concert.β Alagna is the star. The missus was along for the ride. His name came first on the billingβthe tenorβs, not the sopranoβs, which is rare, and almost wrong. But Kurzak sang like a star.
Earlier, I said that Jonas Kaufmann is an uneven tenor, and so is Alagna. He was uneven in this concert. Sometimes he was effortfulβtense and shouty. When he gets this way, I want to tell him, βRelax. Trust your talent. There is no need to overexert yourself. You have plenty of voice and any number of gifts. Just let it happenββwhich, of course, he did, when he was at his best here. And always, he is a winning personality.
Toward the end of the night, the couple sang βLippen schweigen,β that gala duet from The Merry Widow (LehΓ‘r). Further letting their hair down, they sang Mexicoβs most famous song (if it is not βBΓ©same muchoβ): βCielito lindo,β with its refrain of βAy, ay, ay, ay, canta y no llores.β Alagna yipped it up like a mariachi singer. Then came a hit from Naples: not βO sole mioβ but βFuniculΓ¬, funiculΓ .β When it was all over, Alagna let out once last yip, which sailed into the night, over the Med.
The Metβs series continued with Lise Davidsen, the young soprano from Norway, and Joyce DiDonato, our mezzo from Kansas. I reviewed these concerts on the magazineβs website. In the future, there will be Anna Netrebko, Bryn Terfel, et al. And, at last, operaβopera itself, live and in person. Wonβt that be a starry night? Or a bright matinΓ©e?