The Metropolitan Opera approached the end of the 2004-2005 season on a resonant Russian note. Its revival of Otto Schenk’s legendary nineteen year-old production of Die Walküre saw James Levine yield another work in the Wagner repertoire to his principal guest conductor, the Mariinsky Theater’s artistic director Valery Gergiev, making this the first time since 1983 that someone other than Levine has taken the podium for the work at the Met.
Casting decisions wisely populated the revival with some of the Mariinsky’s better Wagner performers. Mikhail Kit’s sturdy Wotan delivered fine music, even if his voice could not always match the orchestra under Gergiev’s powerful conducting. Olga Sergeeva, by far the best in the Mariinsky’s stable of Brünnhildes, again displayed the radiance that she brought to the role in her home country, despite some understandable fatigue in the third act. The veteran mezzo-soprano Larissa Diadkova demanded much favorable attention in her short appearance as Fricka.
The non-Russian performers by no means neglected their work, yet alas, not flawlessly. Plácido Domingo, now 64, continues his reign as today’s greatest Siegmund, but signs of aging are there to be heard in the role’s prolonged high notes, especially the A at the end of the first act. Katarina Dalayman, a talented and attractive singer, brought much to Sieglinde, but tended toward unevenness in delivering some of the role’s best music. The Danish bass Stephen Milling was a solid and unusually dramatic Hunding. The volume of Gergiev’s conducting, despite the challenges it brings even to his own singers, follows the slow tempi identified with Levine and colors almost every note with meaning and power.
Russian talent could not, however, save the Met’s much anticipated new production of Faust, which replaces Schenk’s production of 1990. Andrei Serban (pronounced SHER-ban) has given us (by order, according to rumor) a thoroughgoing traditional production, but one at turns to busy and too boring. In the busy scenes, including the second act carnival and the final trio, the stage is so garish and distracting that the meaning of the work and the emotions of the characters are lost. Why must the carnival be taken up with can-cans, tangos, dancing bears, a puppet show, and perhaps 50 people waving French (why, indeed?) flags? The trio fell against a backdrop of prancing demons and other unnecessary effects, including at the end two life size angels that looked like refugees from a Tony Kushner play. Other scenes, however, bored to distraction. Marguerite’s house must be next to the biggest tree in Germany, one that dominates the entire third act, but apparently only so that people can hide behind it. The costumes, too, verge toward cliché. Méphistofélès has no fewer than four changes, including (yawn) a red devil outfit and a winged and tailed white body suit.
Musically, the evening had highs and lows. The splendid Russian baritone Dmitrii Hvorostovsky justifiably drew the most applause of the evening in the small role of Valentin. Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski posseses a beautiful voice much suited to Richard Strauss (her recent Marschallins have received much acclaim), but her Marguerite was saccharine and genial rather than enthralling. Roberto Alagna has done very well in the dramatic tenor repertoire, but the title role forced him to strain his metallic voice to a degree that left it on the verge of unappealing. René Pape’s fine bass, spectacular though it is, seemed miscast as Méphistofélès, a role that does not rely on the exquisite legato and dark tones for which Pape is known and celebrated. James Levine, conducting the work for the first time in his long and distinguished career, executed the score with his customary excellence but did not show the ponderous insights that he brings to his Wagner and Strauss performances.
PDQ
