Ernani

Verdi-Piave, Ernani. Metropolitan Opera, 3/21/08. With Angela Meade, Marcello Giordani, Thomas Hampson, Ferruccio Furlanetto; Roberto Abbado. Production by Pier Luigi Samritani. Peter McClintock, stage director

Ernani has to set some record for number of drawn sharp objects on stage. Every ten minutes the chorus of bandits or the king's guard collectively draw their swords, or Elvira whips out her knife, or Silva waves a sword at someone, or something. It's amazing that the body count isn't higher.

This was fitting, as I was in a foul mood yesterday. I had been shopping for a new pair of stronger opera glasses (to avoid another Grimes-style "I can't see anything" fiasco) and all of the camera stores were closed for Purim. WTF, Purim isn't an important holiday and I was already mad at Christians for hijacking classical radio with their Passions this week, so I was feeling irreligious. It was nice to hear a good Beviam! Beviam! chorus that involved drinking something other than das Blut Jesu.

And I like Ernani a lot. I'm not going to complain about the plot. It might involve too many hiding spots and too much honor but it's vintage 19th-century Italian and if you don't like this kind of thing you can just forget about a lot of Italian opera. It doesn't have the wonderful pacing of later Verdi, but it gets the job done and the tension never lets up.

Not such a fan of conductor Roberto Abbado. Things hung together, but the orchestra was way too loud. I don't want to hear oom-pahs, even if they are exquisitely played oom-pahs, I want to hear the singers. Some tempos were on the slow side, but it was mostly the balance that was the problem. Also the lack of real climaxes in the ensembles. Things just didn't have enough forward momentum towards the high points. I know it's all high dramatic stuff, but there's tense and there's tense, and there wasn't much in the way of differentiation.

The big story, I suppose, was debuting soprano Angela Meade, subbing for the ailing Sondra Radvonovsky. She's got a big, lovely, youthful sound with a lot of vibrato but not in an annoying way. Her high notes are great and she has a chest voice (though it seemed perilous intonation-wise), she disappears a little bit in the lower middle part of her range, and a trill of the lasar gun Sutherland variety. Her diction is somewhat lacking. She was a fine Elvira, but at this point at least she seems to be a big lyric with a nice airy sound. I don't think her sound has the weight and body for most Verdi; I can't hear her in Trovatore or Ballo at this point. Her "Ernani involami" was more gentle and pretty than most (which tend towards the aggressive), which was actually a nice change. But anything requiring a young-sounding but big lyric with good coloratura would be a good bet. She's large, but expressive and moves well even on all those perilous stairs that feature in the sets for this opera.

Next up is Marcello Giordani in the title role. I like him a lot and his Italian-ness is unquestionable, but I feared at the beginning of this opera his lack of subtlety combined with the music's lack of subtlety was going to be a fatefully unsubtle combination. The actual problem was that his sound seemed small and pinched in Act I, but by Act II he seemed to open up to his more usual squillo-ness and, while he is still kind of a cudgel of Italian tenoring (does the man sing anything other than forte? ever?), he's a good one and effective here, if not the knockout he was in Manon Lescaut (maybe it was just an off night for him).

His opposite was Thomas Hampson as Carlo, who has even less of an Italian sound than La Karita in said Manon Lescaut but probably an excess amount of subtlety for this sort of music. Sometimes he seemed to be straining towards a much rounder sound than he has, which mostly resulted in some unfortunate sforzandi. Once you (and he) got past the fact that Verdi-baritone booming just wasn't in the cards, much of it was very good, smart and interestingly done with good phrasing and details.

In the booming department we had Ferruccio Furlanetto as Silva. A bit woolly, yes, but a real bass like not so many are. And a real Italian bass. And his age was entirely appropriate. According to his bio in the program he has sung des Grieux in Manon, which I kind of doubt.

The production was the sort that you leave until the end to discuss. I like the many grand staircases, though it's somewhat odd to have parallel stair designs in three of the acts but almost entirely leave this out in Act II (a few steps, but nothing that could be called a staircase). Direction seemed to be more or less non-existent; there was much park and bark and frequent positioning into "trio configuration" or "quartet configuration" during orchestral introductions. I don't think this is entirely a bad thing, it mostly worked, but it seemed to miss some chances for some good drama. A little more over-the-topness was necessary. It's big and obvious, make it exciting. The production seems to be a bit in the vein of the Dexter Don Carlo (which I like a lot and though I hope the Hytner will be good I will be sad to see the Dexter go!) but the slight starkness didn't seem to be as carefully edited. Those leaves on the plain black floor in Act I are disconcerting.

But as a primarily musical performance (with some impressively elaborate and shiny costumes), a good time! Not to be missed for early Verdi fans in particular.

On that note, my bad Saturday mood is starting up. My computer, tuned to WQXR for the Tristan, crashed just in time to miss the curse.