ANA BOLENA CRITICA NYT
Autor: BENJAMIM | Publicado: 2011-10-16T05:22:00-07:00

     Music ReviewA Queen’s Delusion and Defiance Opens the Met Season Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAnna Bolena: The soprano Anna  Netrebko appearing as the second wife of Henry VIII in the title role of  Donizetti's “Anna Bolena” in the Metropolitan Opera's opening  production of the season. By ANTHONY TOMMASINIPublished: September 27, 2011                                   Recommend                    
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                Since arriving at the Metropolitan Opera as general manager in 2006, Peter Gelb has been angling to make the soprano Anna Netrebko a house prima donna in the old-world sense: a first among equals. On Monday night Mr. Gelb must have felt that the plan was working.        
                   Multimedia       Slide Show   ‘Anna Bolena’ at the Metropolitan Opera       Excerpt: 'Anna Bolena' at the Met  Excerpt: 'Anna Bolena' at the Met    Close Video  See More Videos »        Related  The Diva, Defined: Netrebko Has Arrived (September 25, 2011) 
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   To open the Met’s season, Ms. Netrebko sang the punishing title role of  Donizetti’s “Anna Bolena” in the company’s first production of this  breakthrough Donizetti work from 1830. The extended last scene was the  high point of Ms. Netrebko’s performance as the distraught British queen  (based on the historic Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII).  Having been falsely condemned for betraying her husband, Anna drifts in  and out of sanity.        
Ms. Netrebko sang an elegantly sad aria with lustrous warmth, aching  vulnerability and floating high notes. When the audience broke into  prolonged applause and bravos, Ms. Netrebko seemed to break character  and smile a couple of times, though her look could have been taken as  appropriate to the dramatic moment, since the delusional Anna is lost in  reverie about happy days with her former lover.        
Then, at the end of this “Mad Scene,” Anna, restored to horrific  reality, curses the “wicked couple,” the king and his new queen, and  stalks off to her execution, insisting implausibly that she is not  seeking divine retribution but going to her grave with mercy on her  lips. Ms. Netrebko dispatched Donizetti’s cabaletta, all fiery  coloratura runs and vehement phrases, with a defiance that brought down  the house.        
Yet Ms. Netrebko’s Anna and the overall performance of the opera  were not what they could have been. The production, by the director  David McVicar, is uninventive and safe. The sets, by Robert Jones (in  his Met debut), are handsome and efficient but tamely traditional, using  a matrix of rotating white brick walls and sliding wood panels to evoke  the interiors and environs of Henry’s palaces.        
In Act I, when the king’s hunting party gathers, complete with two  impressively large dogs, a bit of abstraction is introduced through some  sculptural gray trees. Jenny Tiramani’s costumes are colorful, detailed  and true to the period. Too true. This Henry could have come from the  set of almost any of the innumerable films and television shows that  have been made about the Tudors.        
But the bigger problem was Marco Armiliato’s routine conducting. Mr.  Armiliato has been valuable to the Met’s Italian repertory wing since  his 1998 house debut. In “Anna Bolena” he conveyed an understanding of  bel canto style, in which arching lines must be given room to spin and  cast their spell, and accompaniment patterns have to be flexible.         
The singers seemed to feel supported by Mr. Armiliato, who was always  there when they took liberties. That was the problem. This performance  needed a conductor to instill some intensity into the music, to keep the  cast more on edge, especially in the early scenes. Much of the action  occurs in highly charged bursts of dramatic recitative. But too often  here the orchestra chords that buttress the vocal lines were listless.  And the orchestra’s playing lacked character.        
Previously, Ms. Netrebko had sung the role of Anna  only at the Vienna State Opera this spring. She started tentatively on  Monday, perhaps settling in for the long, hard night of singing that  awaited her. She looked regal and splendid. And in a nice directorial  touch, Anna first appeared with a little red-haired girl, clearly her  daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth.        
At 40, Ms. Netrebko may be in her vocal prime. Her sound is meltingly  rich yet focused. Sustained tones have body and depth. Her contained  vibrato exposed every slight slip from the center of a pitch, especially  in midrange, but I’m not complaining. This remains a major voice, with  resplendent colorings and built-in expressivity.        
Bel canto purists have long debated whether Ms. Netrebko is a natural to  the style, especially in her execution of coloratura passagework. She  may not have the nimble precision exemplified by Beverly Sills (who was  criticized by some for that very accuracy). Ms. Netrebko’s approach is  to sing coloratura as a lyrical elaboration of the vocal line, which she  did affectingly as Anna. And she exudes vocal charisma.        
Still, at moments throughout the evening her singing seemed cautious.  She was at her best when sparring with other singers, especially the  mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova, who was Giovanna (the queen’s  lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour, though it’s best to stick to the Italian  names, since “Anna Bolena,” with a libretto by Felice Romani, plays very  loose with history). Ms. Gubanova has an ample, dark voice with a  slightly hard-edged quality that takes some adjusting to. She sang  Giovanna with incisive delivery, folding embellishments and runs into  impassioned vocal lines.        
Her character was a bundle of nerves in Donizetti’s inspired Act II  scene in which Giovanna finally confesses to the queen that she has been  the king’s mistress and will become his new wife. Again the orchestra  under Mr. Armiliato seemed to hold back, rather than empower, the  intensity these two artists were trying to summon onstage.        
The bass Ildar Abdrazakov brought his earthy, muscular voice to the role  of Enrico (Henry VIII). Though his passagework was muffled by his  gravelly tones at times, he was an imposing presence, and he did not  overplay the king’s brutishness.        
The tenor Stephen Costello  won a hearty ovation for his Riccardo (Lord Percy, Anna’s former  lover). This was a big assignment for the gifted and game young tenor.  Mr. Costello captured the character’s consuming adoration for Anna  through his impetuous and anguished singing.        
The role includes a touchstone tenor aria, “Vivi tu,” in which the  condemned Riccardo implores his friend Lord Rocheford (Anna’s brother,  here the solid bass-baritone Keith Miller) to evade the king’s wrath and  go on living. Mr. Costello mostly navigated the music’s demanding  passagework and exposed high notes. To hear this rising artist  stretching himself was part of the excitement.        
The mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford took on the trouser role of Mark  Smeaton, a court musician with a fatal crush on Anna. Her singing was  sometimes shaky but always honest and ardent. The able tenor Eduardo  Valdes as the court official Hervey rounded out the cast. Every role is  significant in an opera so rich with ensembles, including a climactic  Act I sextet almost as memorable as the enduring sextet from Donizetti’s  “Lucia di Lammermoor,” and more contrapuntally intricate.        
Mr. Gelb has said that ideally the Met should make an artistic statement  by presenting an ambitious new production every opening night. Two  years ago he took a chance on Luc Bondy’s ill-conceived staging of  Puccini’s “Tosca.” Last season came the premiere of Robert Lepage’s production of Wagner’s “Rheingold,”  which is still being argued over, as audiences await the last two  installments of the complete “Ring” cycle this season.        
“Anna Bolena” represented a different sort of risk. To make a case for  this great, overlooked opera, a company must have a stellar soprano in  the title role. Ms. Netrebko is that artist. If only she and her  colleagues onstage had received more help from Mr. McVicar and Mr.  Armiliato.        
The gala evening performance was relayed to Times Square and to Lincoln  Center Plaza, where there was seating for some 3,000 people who had  scooped up free tickets earlier. After the curtain calls onstage, the  “Anna Bolena” cast appeared on the Met’s outdoor balcony to the cheers  of the crowd. This is becoming a welcome tradition under Mr. Gelb.         

 “Anna Bolena” runs through Oct. 28, with additional performances in  February, at the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center; (212)   362-6000, metopera.org. 
          A version of this review appeared in print on  September 28, 2011, on page C1 of the New York edition with the  headline: Met Opens With Royal Delusion and Defiance.     comments (40)
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