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    Review: Lise Davidsen Meets Puccini in ‘Tosca’ at the Met

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    The powerhouse soprano, already a company stalwart at 37, still seems to be figuring out a character whose moods change on a dime.Aficionados have sometimes criticized the Metropolitan Opera for waiting too long to engage singers with starry careers in Europe, like a sports team that acquires only veterans. Even the loudest complainers, though, would have to praise the Met’s early, deep investment in the powerhouse soprano Lise Davidsen, a generational talent from Norway.Davidsen, 37, made her house debut five years ago in Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades.” The title role in Puccini’s “Tosca,” which she sang on Tuesday in a gala honoring the centenary of the composer’s death, is already her seventh part with the company.With a huge, marble-cool voice that she can pull back to a veiled shadow or unleash in a floodlight cry, Davidsen has been most memorable in works by Wagner and Strauss that have broad vocal lines for her to sail through.She has embodied the mythic longing of Ariadne in Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos” and brought opulent purity to Eva in Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.” Last season, venturing into Verdi with “La Forza del Destino,” she captured Leonora’s eternal woundedness.For saintly, long-suffering figures like Wagner’s Sieglinde and Elisabeth, she’s perfect. Davidsen is tall and statuesque — noble, yet modest. She’s not slow-moving onstage, but there’s something glacial about her. She seems most comfortable when she can settle into a character’s steady state for a few hours and just sing.Tosca is a different beast, and Davidsen still seems to be figuring her out. Puccini’s operas are nothing but endless, changeable business: pocketing letters, discovering keys, spying a knife. Every tiny response is illustrated in the music, and moods shift on a dime. His works require hair-trigger agility, even febrility.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Daniele Rustioni, Fixture at the Met Opera, Will Be Its Guest Conductor

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      Beginning next fall, Rustioni will lead at least two operas each season and help provide continuity for the Met as it rebuilds after a wave of retirements.Daniele Rustioni, an Italian conductor who has become a fixture of the Metropolitan Opera in recent years, has been named its principal guest conductor, the company announced on Wednesday.When he joins the Met next season, Rustioni, 41, will be tasked with helping to bring stability and continuity to the Met Orchestra whenever the company’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, an ever-busy maestro, is away. The ensemble is still working to rebuild after a wave of retirements during the pandemic.“The chemistry I feel with this orchestra and chorus is quite special,” Rustioni said in an interview. “They give an incredible amount of energy, and they are always super committed.”Rustioni, who will serve an initial three-year term, will lead at least two operas each season, the Met said. He is only the third person in the company’s 141-year history to hold the title of principal guest conductor. Fabio Luisi, the last maestro to occupy the post, was hired in 2010 when the Met was grappling with the unpredictable health problems of James Levine, its former music director.Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director since 2018, said that he and Rustioni had shared artistic values, and that “having Daniele in this elevated role is good for the orchestra, good for the chorus and good for opera.”Under Nézet-Séguin, the Met Orchestra has worked to recover from the pandemic, filling 17 vacancies and going on high-profile tours in Europe and Asia. But critics have raised concerns about the Met Orchestra’s quality and consistency.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Soprano Lucy Shelton Makes Waves in Opera at 80

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      Lucy Shelton, a soprano known for her work in the contemporary repertoire, has had a role tailor-made for her in “Lucidity,” an opera about identity and dementia.When the soprano Lucy Shelton opened a recital at Merkin Hall in 2019 with “Adieu à la vie,” a song by Rossini, she was about to turn 75. And though she was not bidding farewell to life as the song’s title suggests, she felt she was done with performing. For decades, she had been one of the most sought-after interpreters of contemporary vocal music. But she had reached a point where “I couldn’t sing the things that I used to sing,” she said in an interview. “And that’s depressing.”“I figured I was probably winding down,” she added. “But then I got wound up again.”On Thursday, Shelton, 80, takes center stage at the Abrons Arts Center in the world premiere of “Lucidity,” an opera about identity and dementia, composed by Laura Kaminsky, with a libretto by David Cote. With a score that calls for a multitude of expressive registers, including floated lyricism and sprechstimme, musically notated recitation, the work is tailored to Shelton’s undiminished dramatic strengths. It’s also a testament to her continuing dedication to her craft. (From New York, where the production is presented by On Site Opera, it travels to Seattle Opera.)After five decades making her name primarily on the concert scene, Shelton finds her engagement calendar increasingly filled with opera. In 2021, she performed in the critically acclaimed premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s “Innocence” in Aix-en-Provence, France. Next season, she will reprise the role at the Metropolitan Opera, making her house debut at 82. “It’s kind of a riot,” she said. “It probably thrills everybody else more than it thrills me.”Shelton performing a passage from “Lucidity,” with Eric McKeever.Ahmed Gaber for The New York TimesShelton, who has premiered over a hundred works by composers including Elliott Carter, Oliver Knussen and Gérard Grisey, is unusual in classical music, where few female singers perform past their 60s.One challenge of staged roles is memorization, which can be made harder by age. In discussing “Lucidity” with Kaminsky, she raised her concerns that she might not be able to perform the whole show from memory. In this production, she will always have either a newspaper or sheet music to hold (her character is an aging musician), so that she has all her lines at hand.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: ‘Il Trovatore’ at the Met Opera Doesn’t Catch Fire

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      The energy in Verdi’s classic must come from the singing, but the cast of this revival fails to convey the work’s passion.Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” begins with a group of soldiers keeping a weary patrol. “Drive off the sleep that hangs heavy on our eyelids,” they sing, begging their commander to entertain them with a story.His spine-tingling tale riles them up. But the sleepiness never quite lifts from the revival of “Il Trovatore” that opened at the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoon. While this was only the first of 12 performances of David McVicar’s cement-gray staging — a long run — already on Saturday there was the worn-out feeling of a show ready to rest.The conductor Daniele Callegari kept things flowing in the orchestra pit. But particularly in the operas of the Italian bel canto tradition from which “Il Trovatore” (1853) emerged, the energy — in this piece, it’s closer to crazed passion — must come from the singing.The tenor Michael Fabiano is usually the kind of artist who provides that energy, even if his voice can seem tensely pressed out rather than smoothly natural. As Manrico on Saturday, though, he tended listless, sounding strained from his first offstage song. He occasionally made some attractively plangent sounds, but couldn’t conjure this character’s moody restlessness.As Azucena, the mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton sang with neither the raw power nor the varied, surprising colors needed to make this long-suffering woman’s plight feel truly central to the story. Igor Golovatenko, a baritone who has made a strong impression at the Met in Russian works and, last season, in Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino,” was gruffer than usual on Saturday as Count di Luna.Fabiano and Willis-Sorensen. As Leonora, she kindled some of the passion the production was otherwise lacking. Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera“Il balen,” his monologue about his consuming love for the noblewoman Leonora, should unfold in long, aching lines but here was tired and blunt. Even putting a leading man, the bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green, in the supporting role of Ferrando didn’t end up seeming like luxury casting; this part wants richer depths than Green’s voice provided on Saturday.The show did give reassuring signs about the continued health of the Met’s chorus under its new director, Tilman Michael. That group of soldiers early on sounded hearty and believably frightened, and the women of Leonora’s convent sang with evocative mistiness.Best among the soloists was the soprano Rachel Willis-Sorensen as Leonora. She wasn’t entirely comfortable when agility was required, and she didn’t have the vocal heft and commitment to give the “Miserere” in the final act its full stature. But along with some light-filled high notes, there’s a gentle creaminess to her tone that made the aria “D’amor sull’ali rosee” feel earnest and true.Thanks to Willis-Sorensen, some embers of passion glowed near the opera’s end. But it was too little, too late, for a performance that never caught fire.Il TrovatoreContinues through Dec. 6 at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org. More

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      Met Opera and Singer Injured in Onstage Fall Settle Decade-Old Lawsuit

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      Wendy White, a veteran mezzo-soprano, was performing when she fell in 2011. Her suit, which claimed negligence, had been one of the company’s longest-running court cases.More than a decade after she was injured in a fall from a platform on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera while singing in a production of “Faust,” the veteran mezzo-soprano Wendy White has settled her lawsuit against the company.Ms. White, who says she suffered nerve and muscle damage that prevented her from singing professionally after the accident in 2011, had been expected to return to court this month. But she recently reached a deal with the Met and a scheduled trial was called off. Neither side disclosed details.“Under the terms of the confidential agreement we’re not permitted to comment,” the Met said in a statement. A lawyer for Ms. White declined to comment.The settlement brings to an end one of the longest-running legal disputes in the Met’s 141-year history. The case dragged on amid rounds of legal filings and appeals — and efforts by New York State lawmakers to help Ms. White. She was injured during the Dec. 17, 2011, performance of Gounod’s opera about selling one’s soul to the devil while singing the role of Marthe.Ms. White was walking from a backstage staircase to an elevated platform onstage when a piece of scenery broke and the platform collapsed. She fell eight feet. She did not break any bones, but was taken to the hospital for injuries.The Met said at the time that her injuries did not initially appear to be serious. But Ms. White, who sang more than 500 performances at the Met after making her debut as Flora in Verdi’s “La Traviata” in 1989, never appeared on its stage again.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: ‘Ainadamar’ Fills the Met Opera Stage With Flamenco

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      Osvaldo Golijov and David Henry Hwang’s opera, inspired by the life of Federico García Lorca, arrived at the Met with a dizzying blend of styles.It took nearly 20 years, but the music of Osvaldo Golijov has arrived at the Metropolitan Opera. And it’s not the work that he originally expected.In 2006, Peter Gelb, before taking over as the company’s general manager, announced that Golijov, celebrated at the time for his jubilantly multicultural hit “La Pasión Según San Marcos,” had been commissioned to write a new opera for the Met. The company later said it would be based on Euripides’ “Iphigenia in Aulis,” with a premiere set for the 2018-19 season.Then, in 2016, during a dry spell for the composer, who had developed a reputation for missed deadlines, the project was called off.There was another Golijov opera readily available for the Met to program, though: “Ainadamar,” a fantasia about the Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca. It’s a seemingly sure bet, so frequently performed since its 2003 premiere that it has appeared in New York multiple times already.So Golijov finally got to take his bow on the house’s stage, with the opening of a new production of “Ainadamar” on Tuesday. A fluidly staged dream heavy on flamenco spectacle, it was assured in its movement, but not in its musical performance. After all these years, the Met still doesn’t appear quite ready for Golijov.The production, directed by Deborah Colker, has constant flamenco choreography by Colker and Antonio Najarro.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Osvaldo Golijov’s ‘Ainadamar’ Opera Makes Its Met Debut

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      Osvaldo Golijov’s opera about Federico García Lorca makes its Met debut in a dance-heavy production, directed by the choreographer Deborah Colker.Rippling scales of Spanish guitar, the howls of a raspy-voiced singer, thunderous clapping and stamping — the sounds could have been coming from a tavern in Andalusia, home of flamenco. But this was the Metropolitan Opera House during a recent rehearsal for its new production of “Ainadamar.”A one-act opera by the Argentine-born composer Osvaldo Golijov, “Ainadamar” has its Met debut on Tuesday. And it wasn’t just the sounds of flamenco that were unusual for the opera house. There were two choreographers in the room, one of whom, Deborah Colker, was the production’s director.Since its premiere at the Tanglewood Music Center in 2003, “Ainadamar”— an 85-minute work about the Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca — has had many productions, including in a Golijov festival at Lincoln Center in 2006. But this one, which played at the Scottish Opera and Detroit Opera before coming to New York, has by far the most dance in it.“What Deborah has done blew me away,” Golijov said in a phone interview. “She revealed to me something I had not thought about”: that the opera “can be danced throughout.”Colker is known for her dance company in Brazil, as well as her choreography for Cirque du Soleil and the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She had a musical education, seriously studying classical piano as a child, but “Ainadamar” is the first opera she has directed.“I direct like a choreographer,” she said after the rehearsal, noting that her theatrical approach to the opera was simple: gestures, movement, dance. “This is my language, yes, but this is also what the music is asking for.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Metropolitan Opera’s Season Begins With a Boom

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      “Grounded,” the new work that opened the season, has been joined by revivals of three Puccini, Verdi and Offenbach classics.The Metropolitan Opera’s season began not with a bang or a whimper, but with a boom.In “Grounded,” Jeanine Tesori and George Brant’s new work about a fighter pilot turned drone operator, which opened the season last week, a group of soldiers lets out a stentorian “boom” to depict an F-16 dropping a bomb. It’s a laughable moment; but the real sonic blast arrived during Puccini’s “Tosca,” a few days later.At the fever pitch of that opera’s second act, Mario Cavaradossi, an artist and revolutionary sympathizer, stumbles, bloodied and almost broken, out of a torture chamber and hears the news that Napoleon’s army has won a major battle. “Vittoria!” he cries, summoning his last vestiges of strength in a triumphant declaration of victory.It’s one of the most dramatic moments in a peerlessly dramatic opera. And on Saturday evening, the tenor SeokJong Baek held the two high B flats on the final syllables so long that the audience burst into a delighted ovation that covered the rest of his phrase. It was an unsubtle, unrestrained spectacle — and a deeply satisfying one, the kind of slightly guilty pleasure that’s a crucial part of why we go to the opera.Baek is one of several fine singers in the Met’s opening quartet of titles — “Grounded” and revivals of “Tosca,” Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” and Verdi’s “Rigoletto” — though not one of the four is a must-see. There was a sense over the week that the company was gradually gearing up rather than coming out full force.There are worthy performances scattered throughout, though. The score of “Grounded” is humdrum, but the show boasts a memorable protagonist in the mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, her dusky, penetrating tone the vocal embodiment of an anxiously furrowed brow.Poised and demure, the tenor Benjamin Bernheim is suavely melancholic in “Hoffmann.” The soprano Erin Morley, as the super-high-note-flinging robot he falls for, is an uncanny blend of human and unreal, and the mezzo-soprano Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, making her Met debut, is earthy yet eloquent in the dual role of Hoffmann’s friend and muse.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Opera Is Still Obsessed With the Suffering of Women

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      Two new works, “The Listeners” and “Grounded,” echo the age-old spectacle of female disintegration and show the tension of fitting modern stories into old forms.Opera’s job is to show us what’s bigger, wilder and more intense than ordinary life. It’s a terrarium in which we watch a condensed version of ourselves, with more ecstatic loves and more savage suffering.It’s no secret that a disproportionate amount of that suffering has been endured by women. With its bounty of female mad scenes, wasting sicknesses and tragic deaths, opera has been viewed with suspicion by some feminist critics. In a classic 1979 book, the French theorist Catherine Clément observed that “on the opera stage, women perpetually sing their eternal undoing.”“Glowing with tears, their décolleté cut to the heart,” Clément wrote, “they expose themselves to the gaze of those who come to take pleasure in their pretend agonies.”Opera, in this reading, is the product of a male-dominated society that has both celebrated female beauty and limited female action: hence the virtuoso singing paired with the punishing downfalls. There’s a dark aspect to the fact that women losing their minds and their lives is clearly central to what bewitches so many of us about “La Traviata” and “Madama Butterfly,” “Elektra” and “La Bohème,” “Faust” and much else in the standard repertoire.Not every opera, and certainly not every contemporary one, revolves around suffering women. But two major new works — Jeanine Tesori’s “Grounded,” which opened the Metropolitan Opera’s season on Monday, and Missy Mazzoli’s sly, poignant, darkly funny “The Listeners,” which had its American premiere at Opera Philadelphia on Wednesday — are reminders that this fascination is strong enough to have lingered into our own time.Neither of these works has a traditional opera heroine. Jess in “Grounded” is a fighter pilot (no décolleté for her) and Claire in “The Listeners” teaches high school. And unlike Carmen or Salome, they don’t die; these new operas end with their main characters in a position that can seem a lot like composure. But the main spectacle of both plots — the climactic meat of the action — remains the same as in “Lucia di Lammermoor”: a woman coming undone.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More