Tosca (Opera)

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      Review: A Soprano’s Sound Floods the Met in ‘Ariadne’

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      Lise Davidsen unleashed rare grandeur of tone throughout her range in the title role of Strauss’s opera.“Did you see ‘Ariadne’ last night?” a friend wrote to me on Wednesday. “If you were in Brooklyn, you still may have heard it.”I had seen it, and I knew immediately that by “it” he meant “her”: the soprano Lise Davidsen, who as the title character of Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos” filled the mighty Metropolitan Opera on Tuesday in a way few singers can.Unleashing floods throughout her range, from gleaming, solar high notes to brooding depths, Davidsen offered a nearly supernatural turn in a role out of Greek legend. The radiating, shimmering, ever so slightly metallic overtones that halo her voice make her sound arrestingly powerful and visceral. You feel it as almost physical presence — pressing against your chest, raising the hairs on the back of your neck. Given Strauss’s paring down of his orchestra in “Ariadne” to chamber size, this is the rare occasion when the woman onstage sounds grander at her peak than the forces in the pit do at theirs.It was one of the brilliant ideas of this composer and his librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, to hold their leading lady largely in reserve in a backstage prologue depicting her as an unnamed Prima Donna taking part in the preparations for a nobleman’s evening entertainment. Things turn chaotic when word comes down: Because of time constraints, the somber drama in which she is to star will not play back to back, but simultaneously, with a troupe of clowns. A collision — and union — of hilarity and sublimity ensues.Brenda Rae, left, as Zerbinetta and Isabel Leonard as Composer in “Ariadne” at the Metropolitan Opera.Marty Sohl/Met OperaThe unleashing of an Ariadne in the opera proper is always a thrill for being so tantalizingly delayed — all the more so with Davidsen, 35, a soft-spoken, witty, even daffy presence in the prologue, suddenly endowed with a queenly stature that she fills and overflows. In the role that first brought her international notice a few years ago, she comes off as timeless without losing her youthfulness, penetrating even at more intimate volume than full cry.The conductor Marek Janowski also charted the transition from a lively sound in the prologue to a suaver, more sumptuous one, moving with nimble energy throughout. The baritone Johannes Martin Kränzle was a vigorous, characterful Music Master; the mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, a delicate, subtly rending Composer.It was too bad that as Zerbinetta, the clowns’ ringleader, the soprano Brenda Rae made less of an impression. Rae performs with charming vivacity, and the part — a kind of Straussian Ado Annie — is more congenial for her than was Poppea in Handel’s “Agrippina” at the Met in 2020. But she still sounded pale. Zerbinetta’s quick-witted coloratura should hold its own next to Ariadne’s spacious majesty, admittedly a next-to-impossible task on Tuesday.Davidsen’s voice still seemed to be ringing in the theater the following evening, when another soprano, Aleksandra Kurzak, offered a more modest performance, in her role debut as Puccini’s Tosca.At the Met on Wednesday, the soprano Aleksandra Kurzak sang the title role in Puccini’s “Tosca” for the first time.Ken Howard/Met OperaFlirtatious and spirited in the first act, Kurzak found her instrument pressed to, and past, its limits in the high — eventually homicidal — drama of the second. Her real-life husband, the tenor Roberto Alagna, sounded sometimes fresh and sometimes worn as Tosca’s passionate lover, Cavaradossi. Bringing out piquant details all over, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director, luxuriated in the score — a bit too rhapsodically, as momentum kept slackening.This “Tosca,” entertaining even if imperfect, was an opera. The “Ariadne,” thanks to Davidsen, was an enactment of all that opera can do to us and our bodies, how helplessly in thrall to the human voice we can be.Davidsen has already been exciting at the Met in Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades” and Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.” But her singing is so lavish in its scale that it can swamp even semi-realistic plots. It seems ideal for Wagner’s more mythic works, and thrives in Ariadne’s opulent stylization; here is a role Davidsen was truly born for.Ariadne auf NaxosThrough March 17 at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan. And “Tosca” continues there through March 12; metopera.org. More

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      Review: ‘Tosca’ Catches Fire at the Met Opera

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      Sondra Radvanovsky and Brian Jagde sing thrillingly, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts a superb performance of Puccini’s classic.Sometimes, for reasons no one can fully explain, an opera performance just catches fire. That’s what happened at the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday, when Puccini’s “Tosca” returned.In a fall at the Met that’s been full of momentous new works, intriguing repertory firsts and six-hour epics, this seemed on paper just an ordinary revival of David McVicar’s production. The soprano Sondra Radvanovsky was returning in the title role; the tenor Brian Jagde was appearing at the Met for the second time, singing Cavaradossi; the veteran baritone George Gagnidze (a late replacement for Evgeny Nikitin) was Scarpia; and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director, was in the pit.Yet starting with the opening measures, chilling orchestral chords that represent the villainous Scarpia, this performance abounded in crackling energy, sure-paced suspense, romantic reverie and thrilling singing from Radvanovsky and Jagde.It was Nézet-Séguin who seemed to be inspiring these formidable singers and the orchestra. On Monday, the Met announced that he was withdrawing from a January run of Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” and taking a nearly four-week sabbatical from his conducting duties, including his directorship of the Philadelphia Orchestra.Nézet-Séguin has been maintaining a busy schedule this fall, including Met runs of two demanding contemporary works, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and “Eurydice”; in the announcement he said he needed some time to “re-energize.” Though it was a concerning decision, and it’s disappointing to lose him for “Figaro,” if taking a short break will allow him to keep summoning the kind of energy he had for “Tosca,” then so be it.He didn’t bring an unusual interpretive approach to Puccini’s familiar score. He simply led a splendid performance: rhythmically crisp, transparent, textured and colorful. While giving singers expressive leeway, he maintained shape and direction and favored slightly brisker than usual pacing. When, in Act I, Cavaradossi, trying to calm his jealous lover’s suspicions, turns to Tosca with a lyrical outpouring that begins their duet, Jagde and Radvanovsky sang with plenty of melting lyricism. Still, what a pleasure it was to hear the music — thanks to Nézet-Séguin’s subtle control — performed with a clear pulse, in a tempo that did not allow for any indulgences.Radvanovsky’s account of the great aria “Vissi d’arte” was at once intensely anguished and surpassingly beautiful, our critic writes.Ken Howard/Metropolitan OperaRadvanovsky was extraordinary. Like Maria Callas, perhaps the 20th century’s defining Tosca, she uses the slightly grainy quality of her sound to exciting dramatic purpose. Her account of the great aria “Vissi d’arte” was at once intensely anguished and surpassingly beautiful. The ovation went on so long it seemed Radvanovsky might be forced to break character and acknowledge it. But not this Tosca. One of the best actresses in opera, she made the character her own with affecting touches — flirtatious and playful one moment, fearful and anguished the next.In Jagde she had a tenor who could match her soaring power. It’s hard to believe that he spent almost 10 years early in his career as a baritone. On Thursday his enormous, vibrant voice was capped by exciting top notes. Now and then I wanted a little more subtlety and elegance. But it’s hard to complain when you have a singer with such a big, beefy instrument.Gagnidze held his own as Scarpia, conveying the character’s malevolence but also his aristocratic disdain. Patrick Carfizzi as the Sacristan, Kevin Short as Angelotti and Tony Stevenson as Spoletta were all excellent.There are just four more performances this month with Radvanovsky, Jagde and Nézet-Séguin. When word gets out, tickets may be scarce.ToscaThrough Dec. 18 with this cast (and in January and March with different artists) at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org. More