Seraglio gala ends Andrew Byrne's Met marathon. Friday 22 April 2016
This Met Abduction from the Seraglio was splendid in every way. Osmin was the old hand as Hans-Peter Konig
with both vocal powers and comic talents to carry off this hilarious and
contrasting role. His younger four
Christian protagonists show their amazing metal starting with Paul Appleby
whose very first love-loon aria contained some ‘John McCormack’ breaths and
cantabile legato singing.
Ms Shagimuratova shone as Konstanze with two of the most difficult arias
exquisitely executed. Equally impressive
was Kathleen Kim as Blondchen who slipped in some almost unbelievable high
notes into her already high tessitura.
Brenton Ryan had a debut success as Pedrillo.
James Levine received a rapturous ovation as his orchestra and the Met
chorus did their 'thing' as professionally as ever. The maestro is wheel-chair bound and is thus
installed on the podium well before the start.
Rather than walking on he manoeuvres the motorised chair to 180 degrees
and is spot-lit, same in the ‘curtain’ calls.
His retirement from the top job was announced recently but he will still
guest-conduct a number of operas next season.
The opera might better be called The Clemenza di Pasha (played by actor
Matthias von Stegmann). After two acts
of hilarity we have a philosophical and instructive lesson for the
meddlesome Europeans. The 1978 John Dexter production is a colourful
cardboard cut-out stylised eastern palace - but it works.
I have seen some spectacular opera at the Met during April including two
performances of Roberto Devereux and a mind-numbing Elektra. More details if anyone is interested ...
Also, very grateful for the welcome in this phenomenal city. Back to reality in Sydney for the month of
May.
Regards, Andrew Byrne ..
And special thanks to Charlie for his Opera-L views on Seraglio ( http://listserv.bccls.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1604D&L=OPERA-L&D=1&T=0&O=D&X=05A306392384499AF8&Y=ajbyrne%40ozemail.com.au&P=17281
).
