Carnegie Hall, NY; December 5, 2012—Rich in its melodic invention, lyricism, forward movement in finales, and demands on the star soprano, you wonder why Beatrice di Tenda, Bellini’s penultimate opera, has never been particularly popular. It may be for want of a leading tenor part—the soprano and baritone are the stars, with mezzo coming in third and tenor absolutely last; or it may be the plot’s similarity to Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, which appeared three years earlier and took Europe by storm.
Penned by Felice Romani (as was Bolena), here we find Beatrice, a Duchess, accused of adultery by Filippo, her husband, who loves Agnese, who loves Orombello, who loves (and is somehow related to) Beatrice, who has no interest in him. The plot moves somewhat clumsily (unlike Bolena) and good guys are executed. Perhaps the problem lies in the blandness of the title character, who, despite some showy, glorious music (the role was composed for the great Giuditta Pasta, the first Norma), is, unlike Anna Bolena, passive, unloving, and droopy until her final, angry cabaletta. (Filippo’s complaint about her, early on, is that she’s boring.) Joan Sutherland, Leyla Gencer, Edita Gruberova, Mirella Freni, Lucia Aliberti, and others have tried their hand at it, but the opera itself is rarely invited back.
But it was good to hear it at Carnegie Hall with a major cast, the fine American Symphony Orchestra, and terrific Collegiate Chorale. All ears were on Angela Meade, who has been making quite a sensation in Ernani, Norma, and Bolena and who has proven her ability in long, legato lines, high pianissimos (occasionally compared to Caballé’s), and coloratura. And indeed, the voice is superb. But on this occasion there was a lack of depth to both her singing and her tone; score-bound, she seemed to need another few performances of the work to get it into her mind. And while she never sounded strained, you rarely got the feeling that she was having an easy, bel canto time of it. For every spellbinding moment there were a few that sounded like hard work. A major talent, somewhat diverted. As Agnese, young mezzo Jamie Barton proved herself a powerhouse, with, as they say, solidity from C to shining C. With big, bright tone and careful reading of the text, she almost stole the show.
The opera’s most beautiful solos, oddly enough, belong to the evil baritone Filippo. His opening love song to Agnese, and later, when he considers pardoning Beatrice, contain gorgeous melodies. Young Nicholas Pallesen, nervous at first, eventually settled in and sang with fine dramatic sense and quality tone. Michael Spyres was an elegant Orombello; the tenor is known for his high-lying Rossini roles but got to show off very little in this part. His most beautiful moment is in the second-act prayer, “Angiol di pace”, the loveliest trio Bellini ever wrote, but conductor Bagwell decided to take it too quickly: was he afraid his singers would run out of breath? Whatever his reason, it was a miscalculation. (Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne, and a light tenor—later to become a baritone!—by the name of Richard Conrad recorded it in 1965 for a Decca album called “The Age of Bel Canto”. Try to find it—it’s mesmerizingly beautiful at a slower tempo.)
Bagwell’s leadership was somewhat ragged, with singers and players not always in sync; the Collegiate Chorale, with plenty to do (grieve for Beatrice, gossip about Orombello, condemn people), was in superb form. Bagwell trimmed about 15 minutes off the long first act, mostly repeats (one in the lovely Agnese-Filippo duet, which eliminated much of the baritone’s coloratura—you wonder if Pallesen could have handled it), parts of choruses, and half of an orchestral introduction. If perhaps not having the razzle-dazzle of its first New York performance, in 1961 at Town Hall, starring Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne in their New York debuts (two more performances had to be added at Carnegie that week), it was nonetheless a memorable evening. Whether or not “Beatrice” can ever work as well as Bellini’s other great works remains to be seen.
