A couple of months ago, the stately vessel that is the Metropolitan Opera was sailing deep into icy waters. Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, seeking to reduce expenses, had threatened to lock out the company’s unionized employees—a misbegotten strategy that has upended several musical institutions, most recently the Atlanta Symphony. Fortunately, during last-minute negotiations, in August, Gelb veered away from disaster, winning some concessions from the unions but also giving them an unprecedented voice in the supervision of the Met’s finances. How the arrangement will play out remains to be seen; both endowment and attendance have been in decline, and a mighty collective effort will be required to reverse the trend. For now, operagoers are enjoying a reprieve, at least until the next crisis hits, which could happen sooner rather than later: “The Death of Klinghoffer,” John Adams’s enduringly controversial 1991 opera about Jews, Palestinians, and terrorism, opens on October 20th, and a phalanx of protesters, armed with blatant misrepresentations of the work, is accusing the Met of anti-Semitic animus and terrorist sympathies. Even those of us who have been critical of Gelb’s erratic leadership may wish him a spell of good news.
Good news has arrived in the person of Anna Netrebko, who, in the first week of the fall season, began a run as Lady Macbeth, in a revival of Adrian Noble’s 2007 production of Verdi’s “Macbeth.” At the third performance, the house was full, despite the fact that it was Yom Kippur, and the audience was primed to witness a triumph, to the point where, in the sleepwalking scene, someone barked “Brava!” in the middle of a phrase. The Russian soprano has been a Met star for a decade, but she has often appeared in bel-canto repertory that is ill-suited to her warm, billowing, not exactly acrobatic voice. The role of Lady Macbeth, which requires a heavier, darker-tinged instrument, fits her better. She filled the house with full, grand tone; had no trouble reaching the part’s treacherous high notes; and executed passable coloratura flourishes. Her ability to pack in crowds and whip up publicity, even of a negative kind (like many Russian-born artists, she has supported Vladimir Putin), is to be prized in wobbly times.
No operatic triumph would be complete without a few sour noises from the critics’ aisle. Netrebko had all the notes and all the glamour, but she rarely gave me chills. Her entrance scene, in which Lady Macbeth maps out her husband’s bloody path to the throne, includes phrases marked “con slancio” (“with impetus”) and “con forza” (“with force”). These should flare out and singe the ear. A quick melisma on “infernali” (“Arise now, all you infernal ministers”) needs a slight demonic cackle. Netrebko, in this scene, was too beautiful, too tasteful; on the basis of the sound alone, you’d think her intentions more fair than foul. In addition, the singer’s poses, which ranged from standing on the bed to writhing on the floor, lacked spontaneity. In the Act II aria “La luce langue,” Netrebko’s habitual poise combined with subtler gestures to create a portrayal of insinuating power. Yet self-consciousness crept back in during the sleepwalking scene. In my view, Netrebko still falls short of vocal greatness, though it is within reach. There was much else to admire in this “Macbeth”: Željko Lučić’s gritty, wounded Macbeth; René Pape’s nobly haunting Banquo; Fabio Luisi’s incisive conducting; and, above all, the tremendous Met chorus, worth every penny.
The first new production of the season was Richard Eyre’s staging of “The Marriage of Figaro.” It’s a handsome, moodily lit, ultimately static show, the stage picture dominated by a cluster of turretlike chambers decorated with ornate Moorish-inspired patterns. The action is placed in the nineteen-thirties, allowing for natty costumes but clouding the intricate interrelationships of masters and servants that underpin Mozart’s score. After an hour or three, the hulking set tires the eyes, and by the end I felt as if I were watching something from 1994. Still, it’s not as spatially confining as some other Gelb-era productions, and it will serve as a workable backdrop for agile singing actors.
One such performer is the Swedish baritone Peter Mattei, who plays Count Almaviva. Long noted for his Mozart, Mattei brought to bear not only an endlessly flowing line but also the expressive contortions of a natural comedian. Letting his tall body bend and totter in ways that recalled vintage John Cleese, Mattei threatened to be too amiable a Count; this was corrected when he made ready to swing an axe at a locked door, à la Jack Nicholson. The other standout was Marlis Petersen, whose pearly-toned Susanna eclipsed in aristocratic bearing Amanda Majeski’s Countess. Majeski, a fine young soprano, sounded a touch thin and quavery on this outing. The Figaro was Ildar Abdrazakov, mugging to excess but hitting his vocal marks. At the third performance, James Levine conducted crisply, even briskly; the vagaries of tempo that had been reported on opening night were not in evidence. In all, this “Figaro” amounted to the usual mixed bag, but it was a relief to see a fretful company falling back into comfortable routines.
The New York Philharmonic, keeping up the exploratory urge that it displayed in its inaugural Biennial festival, last spring, remains the most progressive institution on the Lincoln Center plaza. In the first weeks of the season, it offered a vibrant new clarinet concerto by Unsuk Chin, with ear-cleansing solos by the Finnish virtuoso Kari Kriikku; and a concert devoted to the perennially neglected Danish master Carl Nielsen, part of the orchestra’s multi-year Nielsen Project, which also includes recordings for the Dacapo label. Alan Gilbert, the Philharmonic’s music director, has a flair for devising programs that extend and refresh the repertory rather than recycle it ad nauseam.
Nielsen was one of the great wild spirits of musical history—an unruly craftsman who emulated Beethoven by kicking his models away. The latest installment of the Nielsen Project paired the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, each a world in itself. The Fifth, composed after the First World War, unfolds as a series of oceanic surges, which also call to mind wave upon wave of soldiers marching. At the climax of the first movement, the snare drum is asked to improvise in an independent tempo, “as though determined at all costs to obstruct the music.” The Sixth (1924-25), which bears the deceptive title “Sinfonia Semplice” (“Simple Symphony”), was receiving its Philharmonic première. It is an onslaught of fractured forms and fractious sounds, reflective of modernist trends. A glockenspiel chimes eerily; a piccolo cavorts and a tuba galumphs; fugues run amok, then peter out; string lamentations suffer through rude interruptions; a dilapidated waltz is trampled by a brass band in a different meter. In the end, however, this isn’t caustic music; as the scholar Daniel Grimley has argued, the symphony is an all-embracing carnival, a raucous synthesis.
The Philharmonic has a history with the Fifth, having played and recorded it under Leonard Bernstein. Gilbert’s rendition was confident, majestic, relentless; the roiling crescendo at the center of the second movement bested the Bernstein version. The Sixth was more tentative: Nielsen’s neoclassical strains, folkish reminiscences, and popular detours all needed more character and zest. As with Netrebko, you kept wanting larger doses of slancio and forza. Still, Gilbert found a through-line in the rumpus, and elicited an ovation from the audience. The concert had the feeling of an event. Perhaps Nielsen—who went unheard at the Philharmonic until Bernstein took an interest in him, in the nineteen-sixties, and has appeared only fitfully since—is finally ready to join the canon. More likely, though, he will remain an outsider, ready to administer the shock of discovery to each new generation. ♦
