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Racette Scores Triumph as Diverse Heroines of "Trittico" |
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| by Bruce-Michael Gelbert | |
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A FRIEND |
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photo by Ken Howard, Metropolitan Opera
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| Stephanie Blythe & Patricia Racette in ''SuorAngelica'' |
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Patricia Racette, the openly lesbian soprano, scores a major triumph, surely the tour-de-force of the first half of the Metropolitan Opera season, by following in the footsteps of Renata Scotto and Teresa Stratas at the Met, Beverly Sills at City Opera on a single occasion-March 8, 1967-and Renata Tebaldi on recording, and tackling all three very different heroines in Giacomo Puccini's "Il Trittico" (The Triptych, 1918)-sad Giorgetta, having an affair to escape from a stifling existence, with fatal consequences for her love, in "Il Tabarro" (The Cloak); tragic Suor Angelica, in the opera of the same name, consigned to a convent, by an unforgiving family, for shaming their noble name by having a child without marrying; and sunny young Lauretta in the darkly comic "Gianni Schicchi." "Trittico" returned to the Met repertory on November 20, in the lavish, updated production, new two-and-a-half years ago, directed by Jack O'Brien, and designed by Douglas W. Schmidt (sets), Jess Goldstein (costumes), and Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer (lighting). The second of seven performances, on November 25, is considered here.
The dramatic soprano part of Giorgetta represents the biggest stretch for Racette's lirico spinto instrument, but as soon as she sang the opening lines of "Tabarro," it was clear that her luminous soprano, employed intelligently as always, would carry her through the evening and make it an unqualified success. In this gripping initial panel of the triptych, guided by newcomer to the company Stefano Ranzani, Racette moved us as she mourned her child, who had died, and sought refuge-from a humdrum existence on a barge on the Seine, with a husband she no longer loved-in a romance, kept furtive by necessity. In a "Suor Angelica" of almost unbearable intensity, Racette sang rapturously of flowers from her beloved garden, which would adorn the grave of a dearly departed Sister; authoritatively, in praise of the curative powers of herbs she had cultivated; and with searing lyricism, making "Senza mamma" at once wrenching lament and tender lullaby for the son she had never gotten to nurture. She desperately laid bare her very being when she learned her child was dead and feared she committed a mortal sin in taking her own life, having matter-of-factly planned suicide, using the very plants she had raised. She capped her plea to the Madonna for forgiveness with a blazing high C and, dying, marveled at the vision of her child, welcoming her to Heaven. After the verismo rigors of the first two heroines, she settled with ease into the innocent ingénue role in the third opera, delivering an "O mio babbino caro" most delightful in its simplicity and, aptly peevishly, stomped upstairs and out, exiled by her eponymous 'beloved daddy,' who did not want her to witness the fraud he was planning to help perpetrate, and frustrated her in having a rendezvous with her beloved Rinuccio.
Second only to Racette's feat was that of Stephanie Blythe, repeating from spring 2007 the leading mezzo-soprano role in each of the three operas. As la Frugola, the colorful 'Little Buttercup' figure of "Tabarro," Blythe jovially embraced the hand life had dealt her, foraging through trash to find discarded treasures and dreaming of retirement to a little cottage with her beloved mate and their cat. The meaty part of Suor Angelica's icily forbidding aunt, the Princess, brought Blythe's most distinguished singing of the evening and the distrust, disappointment and tension, writ large, between her and Racette's heroine were fully palpable. Her one moment of compassion, to extend a hand to her prostrate niece, reeling from the news of her son's death, was too little, too late, and rejected outright by the nun, who shrank from the proffered touch. As Zita, the comically fearsome matriarch, in "Schicchi," Blythe crossed swords in grand style with Alessandro Corbelli's Schicchi, who would help out her scheming, greedy, dysfunctional family, the Donatis-cheated out of an inheritance from their relative, Buoso, who left his fortune to the monks of Santa Reparata-and would wed his daughter to Zita's nephew.
Tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko, as Luigi in "Tabarro," aired his outlook on life and work as a stevedore in a "Hai ben ragione" that was formidable, but unforced, and he and Racette's Giorgetta, clandestine in their romance, permitted themselves a public moment of rhapsodizing in praise of Belleville, their shared natal neighborhood. As he had to the roles of Barnaba, in "La Gioconda," and Macbeth, Željiko Lučić lent brooding presence and a strong baritone to the part of Michele, Giorgetta's older husband and owner of the barge, an assignment too often taken by singers well past their prime. Lučić and Racette shared a moment of vestigial warmth and heartbreaking pain, recalling the child they had who died, whose death marked that of their love as well, but, after a sonorous "Nulla!...Silenzio!" he showed no mercy as he overpowered strangled Luigi, on his way to a tryst with Giorgetta; shoved his body under his eponymous cloak; and, revealing his deed, forced his horrified wife down onto her lover's corpse. Playing Michele's other workers, Paul Plishka limned good-natured Talpa, Frugola's spouse, in contrast with David Cangelosi's raucous, drunk Tinca. On one side of the glittering Seine lurk hulking factories, their windows reflecting the colors of sun and sky, and on the other side, a cobblestone wharf, where muscular stevedores, with open shirts or no shirt, unload cargo from the barge and a song vender (Matthew Plenk) sells a love song containing a quotation from "La Bohème."
In "Suor Angelica," set in the courtyard of a most monumental convent, Heidi Grant Murphy made a cheerful Sister Genovieffa, fondly recalling the lambs she once tended as a shepherdess, while Wendy White as the Monitor, Barbara Dever as the Mistress of the Novices, and Tamara Mumford as the Abbess provided firm leadership for their own flock. Jennifer Check as Sister Dolcina, the appropriately named sister with a sweet tooth, and Maria Zifchak, as the nursing sister, contributed distinctive cameos.
In "Schicchi," Corbelli expansively outlined his plan to masquerade as Buoso and dictate a new will to his notary, a plot which, if discovered, could result in his and his accomplices, the Donatis, having to forfeit their right hands and right to remain in their beloved Firenze. Saimir Pirgu, the new Rinuccio, who finds the original, unwanted will in the mouth of a trophy boar's head, mounted on a wall, offered a ringing "Avete torto!" as he commended clever Schicchi to his relatives as the man to get them out of their predicament. Preparing Schicchi's disguise, Blythe, Check and Patricia Risley made a highlight of their trio. Plishka returned as a dithering Maestro Spinelloccio, Buoso Donati's clueless doctor. In the last moments of the opera, Buoso's home, filled with booty, here including a portable television, gives way to the vast garden of Buoso's estate and a magnificent panoramic vista of Firenze.
Additional performances of "Trittico" are slated for November 28 at 1 p.m. and December 1, 5 and 9 at 8 p.m. and 12 at 12:30 p.m. In the final two performances, Salvatore Licitra resumes the role of Luigi, which he sang at the production's premiere. For tickets, priced from $15 to 375, telephone 212/362-6000, visit www.metopera.org, or go the Met box office at Lincoln Center. Rush tickets, for $20, are available at the box office on the day of performance, from Monday through Thursday.
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