Triple play.

It was only a matter of time before the nasty cold going around these past few weeks paid me a visit, and as it happened, this was the week. All things considered, I'm pleasantly surprised at how little it actually curtailed my plans: only one day of work missed, that being Wednesday. As a result, Thursday was a royal beast. And once again, I managed to miss that night's Boston Symphony performance of Peter Lieberson's Neruda Songs (Willa Conrad's review of that performance is here), but that wasn't actually due to illness. Rather, someone made me an offer I couldn't refuse, in the form of tickets for the current Broadway production of Sweeney Todd that night -- something that the good Dr. LP, in town for one week only, was itching to see. And I'll rarely say no to Sondheim.

Since John Doyle's ingenious reimagining of this well-loved show as a single-set vehicle for ten singing actors, who also play the score onstage, has been widely reported upon, suffice it to say that this was one of the most brilliantly executed stage performances I've ever been privileged to witness. As Todd, Michael Cerveris simmered with barely controlled rage; Patti LuPone, as Mrs. Lovett, stole scenes and huffed a mean tuba. Every actor involved gave a marvelous performance, but I was especially taken with the way that Lauren Molina, as Johanna, never broke character even during passages as one of the two ensemble cellists. And how fitting that both Johanna and her would-be suitor, Anthony Hope (played by an ardent Benjamin Magnuson) both happened to play cello. All told, this was a stunning achievement that also underscored the ingenuity and sophistication of Sondheim's score. If you consider yourself a lover of musical theater -- or even opera, I daresay -- this is a show not to be missed.

The same probably holds true for the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Mazeppa, although hardly for the same reasons. I caught the premiere on Monday night, and concur with pretty much everyone who has already weighed in (which is, of course, pretty much everyone). The score, as I already knew from Valery Gergiev's Philips recording, is a fine, brooding thing, full of everything that everyone loves about Tchaikovsky. Nikolai Putilin's performance of the titular antihero, if vocally strained at times, seemed perfectly suited to an aged would-be conqueror. Olga Guryakova, as Maria, sang with mostly solid technique and pearly tone, and pranced around the stage with an enviable abundance of energy. Paata Burchuladze's booming voice and regal bearing lent tragedy to his portrayal of Maria's father, Kotschubey, while Larissa Diadkova's powerful, heart-rending Lyubov erased memories of her underwhelming Herodias a few seasons back. As most observers have noted, tenor Oleg Balashov was a frequently underpowered Andrei, but his third act was achingly poignant. In the pit, Gergiev transformed the virtuosic Met Orchestra into a snarling barbarian horde, while still managing to convey the ineffable sweetness of Tchaikovsky's more lyrical outpourings.

As for the production, well, yes, it's a strange and often cluttered mix of realistic and symbolic. (I especially liked Maury D'annato's description of the second act stage as a "Ukrainian history themed pinball machine.") The folk dance in the first act, with its shimmering gold costumes, felt like an Oscar-night tribute to Dr. Zhivago. The steeply raked stage had me fearful that one of those kiddies was going to take a tumble into the pit. Things moved up and down with little rhyme or reason; an executioner's rack in the shape of Stalin's profile seemed to imply a willful evil that Putilin's Mazeppa never really demonstrated. Maria's soccer-goalie handling of her father's severed head seemed more laughable than tragic. On the other hand, the moment that the floor elevated to reveal bodies dangling below was genuinely striking, as was the third act's scorched-earth cinematography -- complete with nuclear fall-out snow flurries.

However addle-pated the production may have seemed at times, ultimately it can't be said to have harmed Tchaikovsky's score, a rich, rewarding concoction that improves as the evening goes on, nor the strong performances of the orchestra and most of the principals. For the sheer interest of those latter two elements, I'd rate this a must-see for committed operaphiles.

Many observers have remarked upon the largish number of seats that had emptied by the third act. For my money, far more startling was the largish number of seats empty at the beginning of last night's concert by the New York Philharmonic. If anything was to guarantee a sold-out show, I'd have thought it would be the combination of a great conductor (Christoph von Dohnányi) leading repertoire to which he is especially well suited (Schubert's Symphony No. 8 and Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle), with the added incentive of two superior singers (Anne Sofie von Otter and Matthias Goerne), on the final night of a three-concert run. Shows what I know: Large patches in the orchestra level were unoccupied, though the crowd unsurprisingly thickened as you looked up toward the ceiling. And I noticed that on the whole, this was on average the youngest crowd I've ever seen at a Philharmonic concert; was this concert perhaps included in a young-subscriber's program?

Does the name "Bartók" still amount to box-office poison among Philharmonic patrons on a Saturday night? I couldn't say. But for me, a long-awaited first live encounter with Bluebeard's Castle was everything I'd hoped it would be. The conductor led a powerful, nuanced performance of this most colorful score, and his soloists thoroughly inhabited the psychic undertow of the dolorous libretto. Von Otter's voice was occasionally lost during more thickly scored passages, but she compensated with vivid emotional projection of character; Goerne's hefty sound was utterly thrilling.

Now, the opening of the castle's fifth door is one of my all-time favorite orchestral passages, and I admit to having felt a slight apprehension that Avery Fisher Hall might sap the wild passion of this singularly brilliant sonic ejaculation. Happily, that wasn't the case; in fact, the impact of that scene was so visceral that I actually felt queasy for a minute. (That's a compliment, by the way.) Moments like that serve as apt reminders of how truly great the New York Philharmonic can be when it's firing on all pistons. Factor in a Schubert Eighth of striking gentility and chamber-music transparency, and the result was one of the finest evenings I've spent with the Phil.

Playlist:

Ludwig van Beethoven - The Late Piano Sonatas - Charles Rosen (Sony Classical)

Richard Wagner - Siegfried - Wolfgang Windgassen, Hans Hotter, Paul Kuen, Astrid Varnay, Bayreuth Festival / Joseph Keilberth (Testament)

Stephen Sondheim - Sweeney Todd - 2005 cast recording (Nonesuch)

Chitti Babu - The Art of Vina II (World Music Library)

King Crimson - Vrooom Vrooom (Discipline Global Mobile)

Comments

[Maury D'Annato]

Oh, envy. Everything about Goerne is thrilling.