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The Metropolitan Opera sounded auspicious in 2020, with a Puccini gala featuring Anna Netrebko, the company’s reigning diva.
But in March, of course, a few weeks before Netrebko returned to the Met as Tosca, the company shut down due to the pandemic. It has been closed for the past 11 months, canceling a series of plans, including a new production of “Aida” for Netrebko, and firing hundreds of its workers without pay.
On Saturday Netrebko returned to the company – in a sense – with the last recital in his Met Stars Live in Concert series, streamed from the Spanish Riding School in Vienna and available until February 19. In recent years, Netrebko has developed into a powerful dramatic soprano. directory. But for the occasion, elegantly accompanied by pianist Pavel Nebolsin, she presented lighter material, mainly intimate songs by Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Richard Strauss.
From the start, “Lilac” by Rachmaninoff, she seemed to become the young protagonist of the text, singing with subdued tenderness and soft colors recalling the fresh scents of dawn and nostalgic happiness among flowers. When Netrebko let loose bursts of radiance in loud voices, as in Rimsky-Korsakov’s exuberant “Lark’s Song Sounds Clearer”, it was almost surprising.
Here are clues to the formidable intensity and thrilling sound she brought to Act II of “Turandot” for the gala over a year ago. But watching his recital, it was hard not to think about what was missing this time: the musicians of the Met. Since the end of March, the unionized orchestra and choir, among other workers, have remained on leave as discussions between unions and management have stalled. Frustrations have been expressed on social media over the Met’s decision to broadcast recitals like Netrebko’s as the company’s performers go without work. (The orchestra is planning its own streaming Met, independent concert, February 21 on metorchestramusicians.org, with star soprano Angela Gheorghiu; proceeds will go to the Met Orchestra Musicians Fund.)
The issue hangs over the recital series, which began in July with Jonas Kaufmann and involves testing whether opera audiences will pay for online content, as well as an attempt to keep Met fans and patrons engaged. Many of the recitals, by singers like Joyce DiDonato, Bryn Terfel and, more recently, Sondra Radvanovsky and Piotr Beczala, have been artistically rewarding and sensitively directed. But the orchestra and choir are at the heart of the Met.
Netrebko’s recital was originally scheduled for October, but in September, while performing at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, she was diagnosed with Covid-19 and briefly hospitalized. So it was a relief to see her and look beautiful. His tendency to sometimes let a note slip up the pitch was a bit more prevalent than usual. But I always thought this review was a bit unfair. Like many vocalists from Russian and Scandinavian lore, she brings a cool Nordic cast to her sound and sings entire phrases with a focused tone, saving vibrato for bursts of intensity. Thus, even the small imperfections of the ground stand out.
Who cares, given the splendor of his charismatic vocalism. Even bringing an affectionate restraint to songs like Strauss’s ‘Morgen’ or Debussy’s ‘He Weeps in My Heart’, she kept the fervor of opera alive by stirring just below the surface, ready to unleash in climactic phrases. . I loved the way she started Tchaikovsky’s “Nights of Delirium” with a muted milky tone, then slowly increased intensity as the music expressed the thoughts of a young woman of sleepless, feverish nights consumed by memories of a lover. And she topped off a beguiling performance of the aria “Since the Day” from Gustave Charpentier’s opera “Louise”, in which a young seamstress in Paris who ran away with a lover expresses happy romantic contentment, with a B softly shimmering.
She was joined by the excellent mezzo-soprano Elena Maximova in a duet of “The Queen of Spades” by Tchaikovsky and the famous Barcarolle from “Tales of Hoffmann” by Offenbach. During a break, soprano Christine Goerke, host of the recital series, spoke with Peter Gelb, managing director of the Met, about Netrebko’s future plans, which include Elsa in a new production of Wagner’s “Lohengrin” , with Goerke as Ortrud. Count on me.
But the next step for her, if the reopening this fall goes as planned, will be a concert at the company’s Lincoln Center with its full orchestra in October. A return to live performance, with must-have Met artists fully paid, can’t come soon enough.
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