Metropolitan Opera House, New York; October 21, 2003
There has been so much press about Renée Fleming’s undertaking of Violetta, one of the most popular and scrutinized roles in the soprano repertoire, that it would be easy to have become jaded before actually hearing/seeing her. Would its vocal challenges leave her in the dust? Will we miss Callas’s insights and Sutherland’s virtuosity? In short, will she bring anything new to it and place a special stamp on it?
The answers are complicated. To be sure, she handles the vocal difficulties: the high Cs and C sharps of her act one cabaletta are tricky, but the coloratura holds no fears for her; she’s thoroughly on top of the bigger lyricism of the central act, achieving a fine effect in the dramatic “Amami, Alfredo!,” and she has the long-lined soft singing as well as the outbursts for the finale. She doesn’t wrench the soul the way Callas does throughout, nor does she leave one breathless at “Sempre libera,” like Sutherland used to. But her mark is clear: This Violetta is quite ill from the start and somewhat of a fatalist; she has to work to get herself to feel any optimism. The first and second acts are believable and touching; the last act is so filled with artifice (“Look! I can sing on the floor! I can sing on my back! I can growl and yelp like Anna Magnani!”) that it’s a pity. The voice remains gorgeous throughout; perhaps the portrayal will ease into something less forced. The overall impression is positive, but we’re left unmoved at the end.
Fleming was surrounded with the best. Dmitri Hvorsotovsky’s Germont, bullying at first, soon won over, sympathetic at last, is sung gorgeously, with such nuances, such long-breathed lines, that one listens awestruck. He gives us a three-dimensional character – filled with sadness – while bathing us in ravishing, burnished tone. Making his debut as Alfredo was Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon. Dark, handsome, slim as a rail, entirely at home on stage, the very young-looking tenor has a rich, full-bodied sound, a keen musicality, an innate sense of graceful phrasing and a dusky timbre. An occasional tendency to vary from pitch in mid-voice during dramatic moments should be watched, but the voice carries substantially; his might be the most auspicious tenor debut since Juan Diego Florez.
Franco Zeffirelli’s sets remain overblown; the second act party is almost laughably lavish, and the third act move from Violetta’s death-bedroom back to her living room by hydraulic lift is distracting – if expensive. And would a half-dead Violetta, after crawling on the floor in weakness, storm down the stairs? Let’s make sense, Franco-as-director, even if it means a bit less razzle-dazzle. The costumes (by Raimonda Gaetani) are sumptuous to a point of noisiness.
Conductor Paul Nadler led a no-nonsense performance with to-the-point tempi and a refusal – except when Fleming willfully slowed down the vocal line – to engage in bathos, and the Met Orchestra and Chorus were splendid. One left satisfied; no, she’s neither Callas nor Sutherland (nor Sills, for that matter), but she’s Fleming, and her Violetta is a work-in-progress. And it’s pretty exciting.
Robert Levine
