Pauvre Manon

Manon Lescaut. Metropolitan Opera, 1/29/08. With Karita Mattila, Marcello Giordani, Dwayne Croft, Dale Travis, Sean Panikkar. Conducted by James Levine, stage director Gina Lapinski.

If I were an evil Regietheater director who does not place a premium on logic I would somehow stage Act IV of Manon Lescaut so that des Grieux never actually comes back after Sola, perduta, abbandonata and Manon only imagines that he does. So he actually gets away and leaves her to die of thirst alone, but she's never going to realize that anyone actually had the nerve to abandon her. Because, well, she's OK in Act III but for the most part I just don't think she is worth having a sweet and harmless tenor ruin his life and [maybe?] die for her. She's more Paris Hilton in jail than Carmen in jail. Not that Carmen is really worth dying for either, but you can see why Don José goes for her.

Since the opera's gaping dramatic problems are mostly due to its shitty libretto (which is the same every time, y'all), I will refrain from ranting about how this opera has no dramatic continuity and that Manon is a bundle of most of the 19th century's less attractive ideas about feminine nature. The Met's production is one of the big traditional ones that doesn't come up with creative and/or convoluted solutions to these problems. It's elaborate (though for the most part not in a gratuitously detailed Zeffirelli way) and seemed to work as well as any traditional Manon Lescaut is about to work. Act II is gorgeous if you like that sort of thing. The folks in Act I seemed a little more like village peasants than starving students, but whatever. There was a bit more parking and barking than Mr. Gelb seems to want in his new Opera as Drama ® (which he seems to think he invented) but I guess you can't have everything all in two seasons, particularly when you're dealing with B-list operas.

I like Karita Mattila a whole lot but have reservations about her and Puccini. She loses so much vocal color above the staff and Puccini is so about those high notes that a lot of the climactic high bits seemed to elude her. It was gorgeous and gorgeous and gorgeous and then BAM! Whole note on a B natural and suddenly it's like vodka instead of Montepulciano or a knife instead of a beach ball or something.

But for the most part she was good. I'm not so sure about all the chest voice in Act IV, some of it would have been a nice effect but there was more than some. Sounds like a Tosca audition. But there was lots of good stuff--intensity, a mostly lovely and very powerful sound, musicality, acting, uh, enthusiasm in Act II (she definitely went for it, and I'm not sure if this was a good idea but it was interesting). She'll never sound Italian but she does sound very good, and got better and better ending with a fine Sola, perduta, abbandonata.

Sounding Italian was absolutely never a problem for Signor Giordani, who was terrific. Tons of Italian tenor adjectives like squillo and slancio and so on and he had energy and passion. His voice is still slightly on the ragged side, probably due to his habit of singing absolutely everything f or ff. But the sound itself was great last night. If you believe, like me, that most of Puccini's best moments are his loudest ones, well, it may still have been too much of a good thing. But we don't get this kind of Italian tenoring very often and I'm happy to take twice the recommended dosage in one opera once in a while. Subtlety wasn't really a factor, but that's OK.

Dwayne Croft was an acceptable Lescaut, on the woolly and growly side of things, but listenable enough. There was an impressive debut from Sean Panikkar as Edmondo, who has a clear and well-produced tenor that I would like to hear again. Some balance and coordination issues in Act I, mostly in those soloists-talking-over-the-chorus passages where you could only hear the chorus. But I'm sure that will straighten itself out soon. The orchestra under Levine sounded its usual good self.

I find this opera pretty difficult to get swept up in, but this performance had enough strong parts to make it a very worthwhile outing. Not exactly a Gesamtkunstwerk, but A-level on enough kunsts as to not be a waste of time.

Also: links to the right are back to normal. I'm not sure what was up there, but Blogger and Mac Firefox aren't best friends.