Author: Philip Gardner

Above: Maestro Dima Slobodeniouk and violinist Augustin Hadelich onstage at David Geffen Hall; photo by Brandon Patoc

~ Author: Lane Raffaldini Rubin

Saturday November 22nd, 2025 – On Saturday night, the New York Philharmonic wrapped up a run of performances featuring American-German violinist Augustin Hadelich and Russian-born Finnish conductor Dima Slobodeniouk. Hadelich, who will return to David Geffen Hall in January to present an Artist Spotlight recital, tonight played Samuel Barber’s affable violin concerto. The rest of the program focused on Finnish music, with the New York premiere of the decade-old Stonework by Sebastian Fagerlund, and Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2.

Samuel Barber wrote one of the least hubristic concertos in the violin literature, foregrounding melody and interplay between the soloist and the orchestra rather than virtuosic display. Hadelich’s playing and stage presence suit the piece very well, despite a number of moments when he was overpowered by the Slobodeniouk and the Philharmonic. Geffen Hall is not acoustically generous to violin soloists, a fact which a conductor more experienced in this hall may have more deftly addressed.

Hadelich gave the opening solo of the first movement a darker tone than is typically heard and allowed his sound to bloom into a full, even primaveral sweetness. He maintained the intensity of his tone and vibrato across the full range of the instrument, which had the effect of bringing a lovely satin tone to the usually more metallic upper reaches of the violin.

Hadelich received an extended, warm ovation from the audience and played his own arrangement of Orange Blossom Special, a popular fiddle tune by Ervin T. Rouse that Johnny Cash later immortalized in concerts and recordings. Hadelich’s version featured many of the bravura techniques that Barber’s concerto lacks and showed off his brilliant skill. The crowd was audibly entertained and impressed.

Stonework was written as a standalone tone poem in 2014-15 and later became the first in a trilogy, followed by Drifts (2017) and Water Atlas (2017-19). Fagerlund’s music tends toward the vast, the evocative, and the cinematic. Slobodeniouk’s hurried starting tempo proved too active for the atmospheric music that opens the piece, a smattering of sharp attacks over a continuous chord across the orchestra. Presumably these figures are meant to conjure sparking flints, an effect hindered by what became a uniform blanket of sound from the orchestra.

In one passage that unleashes the full forces of the brass and percussion, producing an impressively towering sonority from the orchestra, Slobodeniouk could have managed a better balance across the orchestra so that the intricate material in the strings would have been intelligible. For the first time in my listening life, here we had too much cowbell. A soft, sustained section lent the second half of the piece a sense of mystery and cinematic texture that built in tension and direction to the end.

Fagerlund’s vision of an abstract Finnish landscape was set against Sibelius’s own from a century earlier, which Slobodeniouk approached with technicolor vibrance starting with the very first contoured hillocks in the strings that open the first movement. Slobodeniouk ran the risk of over-determining the shapes of each phrase, but the reward was a superbly crafted first movement. The strings sounded consistently opulent and each capacious brass passage was accompanied by a satisfying sense of arrival.

Slobodeniouk kept this up in the second and third movements as well. In the second movement he drew out earthy, Stravinskian sounds from the double-reeds and brass and he made the downright weird scribbles of fast notes in the strings at the very end of the movement make sense with a fast, thundering energy.

But Slobodeniouk’s pacing couldn’t sustain this arc all the way through the piece. The fourth movement seemed gushy and maudlin in contrast to the craftsmanship of the prior movements and the orchestra pulled stubbornly against some of his desired tempos. It was a disappointing way to end, after Slobodeniouk had demonstrated his ability to draw out superb detail and longer dramatic arcs from the Philharmonic.

~ Lane Raffaldini Rubin

Author: Mark Anthony Martinez II 

Wednesday November 19th, 2025 – The Voices of Ascension Gala this year took place at the Museum of the City of New York and was a splendid affair, filled with interesting people and beautiful music. The Gala had two special guests who were being honored at the event: Anthony Roth Costanzo (photo above), countertenor opera star and also the General Director and President of Opera Philadelphia, as well as Alexandra Munroe, Senior Curator at Large, Global Arts, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation; Chair, Aspen Music Festival and School.

The event started with a cocktail reception where the attendees mingled and chatted while the night’s honorees flitted around chatting amongst the crowd. Everyone was in a festive mood, and some of the outfits that people wore truly seemed like they had come straight off a runway in terms of how daring and avant-garde they were.

Once the party aspect of the gala had settled down, the musical portion of the night began. The audience sat on the ground floor of the museum, below the spiral staircase, as both Costanzo and Munroe were honored with lifetime achievement awards.

The program was an eclectic mix of Renaissance to modern pieces that highlighted the many things that Voices of Ascension has to offer.

The program started with a piece, El Grillo, by composer Josquin des Prez, a Renaissance composer from what is now modern-day France. The piece was performed by a quartet of singers from Voices of Ascension: Liz Lang (soprano), Kirsten Sollek (contralto), Chad Kranak (tenor), and Joseph Beutel (bass-baritone).

The piece was jaunty and very characteristically medieval—but in the best way. The singers performed with such energy that the music was truly brought to life. The quartet was so animated with their singing that what could have been just a choral work became a real performance.

The next piece performed was a new composition that had its world premiere at the gala. The piece, Mine Ear, My Eye, My Hand, was composed by Nico Muhly and written in honor of Alexandra Munroe. The piece was again performed beautifully by the quartet of singers and provided a nice counterpoint to the medieval piece just performed.

The next piece was a cello and voice duet called Changing Light by Kaija Saariaho. The artists in this piece were Alice Teyssier (soprano) and Dr. Tommy Mesa (cello). The piece was interesting and used a good deal of extended vocal technique on the part of Teyssier. At times, it seemed baroque in styling but definitely ventured further into a more modern soundscape than the preceding modern piece.

After Changing Light was performed, the quartet of a cappella singers returned to sing a piece called TaReKiTa by Reena Esmail. The piece derives its name from the Indian drum, the tabla, and the sounds that it makes. The piece’s text was entirely based on the phonemes from the title itself—Ta, Re, Ki, Ta. It was an interesting percussive song that explored how the human voice could connect to such a different type of instrument and emulate it.

The penultimate piece was a classic: Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1. Mesa returned to perform the cello masterpiece wonderfully. The mini concert was able to move through so many different genres and eras of music so well, and having a perennial classic like this was a great way to anchor all the other pieces.

The final piece was perhaps the most anticipated, because one of the guests of honor, Costanzo, performed Vivaldi’s Sol da te, mio dolce amore from Orlando Furioso. Costanzo will be performing a pastiche opera from Vivaldi’s works at Opera Philadelphia in the coming year, so this might also have been a preview of that new (and old) piece.

Costanzo is at home in this baroque aria and performed deftly and beautifully. I’ve heard several countertenors over the years, and Costanzo certainly ranks among the top. He sounds so natural in a way that is often hard to achieve with countertenor repertoire and worked so well with the instrumentation. On a fun note, the flutist who performed the lion’s share of the instrumental melody was Ms. Teyssier, who performed the modern vocal piece earlier in the concert.

Once the piece, and the concert, was over, the audience gave a warm applause and ovation for the musicians and honored guests of the night.

~ Mark Anthony Martinez II

Above: Nicolas Altstaedt and Thomas Dunford; photo by Fadi Kheir

Author: Lane Raffaldini Rubin

Tuesday November 18th and Thursday November 20th, 2025 – This week, Carnegie Hall presented two very distinct baroque programs. The first, on Tuesday, featured cellist Nicholas Altstaedt and lutenist Thomas Dunford in Weill Hall and the second, on Thursday, featured the ensemble L’Arpeggiata in Zankel Hall. Both performances were led by lutenists (Christina Pluhar in the case of L’Arpeggiata) and acted like jam sessions, to differing degrees, where improvisation linked major components of the programs together.

Altstaedt and Dunford presented a loose program centered on Marin Marais and J.S. Bach which also included Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel, winning them inclusion in Carnegie’s ongoing celebratory Pärt series. L’Arpeggiata’s program, titled “Wonder Women” after their 2024 album, was muddied by last-minute changes necessitated by the withdrawal of one of the featured vocalists due to illness. Intending to feature only works by women composers and traditional songs about women, the evening did include several works by men—and all of this was played by the almost exclusively male ensemble.

Tuesday’s program began with Marais’s breezy La rêveuse. Although Marais and Antoine Forqueray (whose music we also heard) played and composed for the viola da gamba (for no less prestigious patrons than the royal court of Versailles), Altstaedt performed these works on the violoncello. The two instruments resemble one another but differ in ways that result in distinct technical abilities and challenges. The viola da gamba’s six strings are tuned at smaller intervals than the cello’s four strings and the former features a much flatter, fretted fingerboard, which makes it well suited to playing chords and using the bow to cross the strings back and forth.

Altstaedt’s playing often hindered the fluidity of Marais’s more melodic pieces as well as some of the rollicking passagework of selections like Forqueray’s La Leclair. Altstaedt, who is not strictly a performer of early music, was not at ease in the gamba music on the program. He became an altogether different musician when he played Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5, however, giving us highly disciplined bowing technique, characterful dance rhythms, and a series of strikingly hushed fast passages.

But Dunford was the evident leader and star of the evening. One got the clear sense that this was his program and Altstaedt was along for the ride. Dunford, who always brings charisma and congeniality to the stage, plays the theorbo with such comfort that the instrument seems merely an extension of his body. Between most pieces on the program, Dunford riffed improvisatory interludes and, at one point, even threw in his transcription of Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 1 as a treat. Most notable was his arrangement of Bach’s famed Cello Suite No. 1, which he treated with ripe sweetness, occasional vibrato, and gorgeously froggy tone in the lower register. Dunford’s arrangement made the piece a natural fit for the theorbo, despite its differences from the instrument for which Bach wrote the piece.

Dunford’s transcription of Spiegel im Spiegel suited Pärt’s music just as well, not dressing Pärt in baroque clothing but demonstrating the outside-of-time nature of Pärt’s tintinnabuli compositions. The cello floats above harp-like arpeggios and low drones in the theorbo. The two voices add up to a gorgeously simple lullaby and an exercise in patient listening. This Spiegel im Spiegel is in a way the opposite of Marais’s Couplets de folies (which wrapped up the first half of the program), a set of variations based on the extremely popular Spanish “folia” melody and chord progression which piles on more and more intricacy, technical bravura, and sheer sound as it barrels to its conclusion. Spiegel im Spiegel begins near silence and remains there, giving us only what is necessary to sustain beautiful music.

On Thursday L’Arpeggiata presented a robust setlist of music taken from folk sources, rustic popular traditions, and aristocratic women composers. I call it a setlist because L’Arpeggiata approaches music-making much the way jazz musicians do, with emphasis on improvisation, riffing, sharing solos, expressing feeling over refinement, and not taking oneself too seriously.

The players and singers brought pure joy to the music. Doron Sherwin, on the traditional cornetto, leaned into moments of tone bending and hammed up the melodic lines of a traditional Italian canzona that may as well have been composed by Nino Rota. Tobias Steinberger reveled in extended tambourine solos that entranced the audience. As the evening progressed, the vocalists loosened up and infused their singing with dance steps and intricate series of narrative hand gestures. The male alto Vincenzo Capezzuto’s take on Lo guarracino, a Neapolitan comedic song that tells the story of a small fish in love with a sardine and, according to Pluhar, describes “fish wars” and includes “a hundred verses of fish names in Neapolitan” was funny and impressive. Capezzuto sang with confidence and never stumbled.

Christina Pluhar (above) has a much more understated stage presence than Dunford but took a moment to shine in Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger’s “Toccata arpeggiata” from the first book of the Intavolatura di chitarrone (this piece is the source of the ensemble’s name). Kapsberger is the most interesting composer for the theorbo and Pluhar brought out a striking sense of mystery in his music.

The Chilean-Swedish mezzo-soprano Luciana Mancini was a standout, singing with a sultry and viscous tone in very low tessitura and almost exclusively in Spanish. In the traditional Mexican song La bruja, which closed the program, Mancini began with a witchy laugh and offered a gorgeously haunting, gravelly recounting of a sorceress and her conquests and tribulations.

The academic stil moderno songs of Barbara Strozzi and Francesca Caccini—themselves fascinating figures in the man’s world of baroque Florence and Venice—were peppered in as well and offered some beautifully dramatic vocal writing. But the program’s Neapolitan tavern songs and Mexican ballads offered a rare and captivating glimpse into the roots of many idioms that we can still recognize in today’s popular music from around the world.

~ Lane Raffaldini Rubin

The Hungarian mezzo-soprano Júlia Hamari singing songs of Brahms and Strauss from a 1974 recital given at Hilversum, Netherlands, in 1974. Konrad Richter is the pianist.

Listen here.

In 1982, I saw Ms. Hamari as a lovely Rosina in Rossini’s BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA with the Metropolitan Opera on tour in Boston. Her excellent colleagues were Rockwell Blake, Pablo Elvira, Sesto Bruscantini, and Jerome Hines. Sir Andrew Davis conducted.

~ Author: Oberon

Wednesday November 19th, 2025 – An all-Taylor evening at Lincoln Center opened with SCUDORAMA, continued with SUNSET, and ended with Taylor’s signature work, ESPLANADE.  

This was my second SCUDORAMA of the current season; thru the years, I have found myself changing my mind about this piece every time I see it. Earlier in the current season, I found it wasn’t reaching me on any level, aside from the dancing itself. Tonight, I thought the score was fascinating, and that there’s lots to like about the staging and choreography…as well as lots that seems incomprehensible. 

The musicians of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, conducted by David LaMarche, really got into it tonight. At the performance 2 weeks ago, my companion had found that the Clarence Jackson score has a Bernstein feeling to it; tonight, I could hear that reference clear as a bell. 

The dancing was exceptional tonight; Devon Louis and Kenny Corrigan excelled in their duet, as did Gabielle Barnes and Madelyn Ho in theirs; and Kristin Draucker and Mr. Louis make a marvelous partnership. The dark clouds in a post-apocalypse sky remain an intriguing mystery. 

Paul Taylor’s SUNSET is one of the Master’s finest lyrical masterpieces. Created in 1983, the set and lighting by Alex Katz and Jennifer Tipton’s lighting create a uniquely peaceful atmosphere; but there are undercurrents of tension as well. The luminous music by Edward Elgar is made more affecting by the recorded cries of loons.

A group of young soldiers in red berets are hanging out in a park at twilight; perhaps they’re awaiting marching orders for the coming morn. The set is so simple: bare branches of trees, painted on bare walls, imply that its Autumn…and a rail fence could be an allusion to a ballet barre. 

Girls in white dresses come by to flirt: Madelyn Ho, Kristin Draucker, Jada Pearman, and Jessica Ferretti all look so innocent. The soldiers – Lee Duveneck, Alex Clayton, Devon Louis, John Harnage, Kenny Corrigan, and Patrick Gamble – seem at times swaggering, at others…uncertain. A duet for Lee Duveneck and John Harnage alludes to something beyond soldierly camaraderie, and the ever-lovely Madelyn Ho shines in a dance of almost childlike playfulness. Jada Pearman is radiant in a section with the boys that seems to evoke a remembered time. A dropped beret as the soldiers move out is saved as a souvenir; many years hence, it will be found stashed in a bureau drawer and produce a flood of memory.      

Kudos again to the St. Luke’s players, under Tara Simoncic’s baton, for their entrancing playing of Elgar’s music. The recorded loon calls lend a nostalgic air, though my companion found then somewhat ominous.

I never tire of ESPLANADE, one of Taylor’s most perfect meshings of music and movement. Violinists Krista Bennion Feeney and Alex U Fortes regaled us with their playing of the timelessly evocative music of Bach; their St. Luke’s colleagues, under Maestro LaMarche’s baton, made us feel that everything’s right with the world. 

The dancers – Kristin Draucker, Jada Pearman, Jessica Ferretti, Gabrielle Barnes, Emmy Wildermuth, and Elizabeth Chapa with Lee Duveneck, Devon Louis, and Austin Kelly – danced to perfection. I’ve been very much taken with Ms. Barnes this season; she – and all the dancers – seemed to be inspired Bach’s music, making for many truly gorgeous moments as ESPLANADE unfolded tonight..  

In the ballet’s final movement, famous for Paul Taylor’s choreography which calls on the dancers to race about the stage at hi-velocity whilst periodically flinging themselves to the floor, the dancers were astounding. This is a risky business, but tonight the dancers seemed bent on challenging one another to feats of derring-do. In a solo passage, Emily Wildermuth captivated the crowd with her extraordinary passion and commitment. Earlier in the piece, Emily had shown another facet of her dancing in a lyrical duet with Devon Louis.

ESPLANADE ends as the dancers rush off in different directions, leaving the irresistible Jada Pearman alone onstage, opening her arms as if to embrace all of us.

For a while, this iconic moment in dance was owned by Michelle Fleet. Tonight, I was thinking back to my earliest Taylor experiences, at Jacob’s Pillow back in the late 1970s, and how the roster has evolved over the years. Dancers with extraordinary technical prowess and engrossing personalities have passed their roles onto the next generations, and the Taylor flame burns as brightly as ever. 

It was in this pensive mood that one of my favorite Taylor heroes, Take Ueyama, came over tonight to say hello. 

~ Oberon

The great American heldentenor Gary Lakes (above, as Siegmund) has passed away at the age of 75. An Oklahoma native, he studied at Southern Methodist University with tenor Thomas Hayward, and made his operatic debut as Froh in RHEINGOLD at Seattle in 1981.

The 6’4″ tall Mr. Lakes made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1986 as the High Priest in IDOMENEO. Over the next ten years, a gave over 100 performances at The Met. During that time, I was frequently trekking from Hartford to The Met for long weekends, and so I saw his Erik in FLIEGENDE HOLLLANDER, Emperor in FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN, Samson, Don Jose, and Siegmund. His other Met roles included Parsifal (his Kundrys were Jessye Norman and Deborah Polaski), Laka in JENUFA, Berlioz’s Aeneas, Beethoven’s Florestan, and Jimmy Mahoney in RISE AND ALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY. 

Elsewhere, he sang Tannhauser, Tristan, Siegfried, Lohengrin, Admete in ALCESTE, and Bacchus in ARIADNE AUF NAXOS.

Gary Lakes sings Siegmund in the final scene of Act I of DIE WALKURE from a concert given at the Cincinnati May Festival in 1986. Lorna Haywood is Sieglinde and Artur Korn is Hunding; James Conlon conducts. Listen here.

~ Author: Mark Anthony Martinez II

Thursday November 13th, 2025 – Some music should really be performed in churches, or at least is best heard in churches. Sacred music, like the famous requiems, is often heard in concert halls, but the acoustics of a church really highlight such music in the best ways. Great composers aren’t only able to write beautiful music; they also know how to make the music sound its best given the medium they are working in. Part of this is knowing how to write for particular instruments or voice types, but another part is understanding the acoustical features of where their music is supposed to be performed.

The American Symphony Orchestra held their November 13th concert in Midtown Manhattan at St. Bartholomew’s Church and did so with the perfect repertoire for the venue. The ASO is known for performing classics as well as more forgotten pieces. This concert featured music by two composers, Peter Cornelius and Luigi Cherubini. Although they are not household names today, in their own times they were well regarded. Cherubini, in particular, was one of the most famous composers when he was alive, enough so that Beethoven thought he was the greatest composer of his era.

St. Bartholomew’s Church was a beautiful and perfect acoustic for both the orchestra and the Bard Festival Chorale, who would be performing the two pieces under the baton of Leon Botstein.

Above: Peter Cornelius

The concert started with Cornelius’ Stabat Mater, which was having its U.S. premiere with this concert. The Stabat Mater was composed in 1849, which is considered to be in his early period. The soloists for this piece were Wendy Bryn Harmer (soprano), Krysty Swann (mezzo-soprano), Eric Taylor (tenor), and Harold Wilson (bass).

The piece opened with the orchestra playing a solemn and tragic-sounding opening, reminiscent of Beethoven’s more tragic works. The real majesty of the piece started to unfurl when the choir came in. The first movement was truly breathtakingly beautiful and, with the booming acoustics of the church, felt so moving. The choir and orchestra did a wonderful job of weaving in and out while the two switched off the lead.

The piece continued with Harmer singing a brief solo interspersed with choral responses. Afterwards, the soloists sang together in a sort of ensemble, doing a call and response with the choir.

The soloists all did a phenomenal job. I particularly liked Wilson as the bass soloist. His voice cut through while not overpowering at any time.

A standout section of the Stabat Mater was the Eja Mater movement. This movement was the only true solo aria of the entire piece and was sung eloquently by Harmer. The solo had the workings of an early German Romantic feel to it.

The piece concluded with a fanfare of both orchestra and chorus in a glorious finale full of brass fireworks. The entire piece was so masterfully performed by both the orchestra and the choir. It was a truly phenomenal job that every musician should be proud of.

During the intermission, several of the orchestra members packed up, as the Cherubini Requiem would have a smaller orchestral ensemble and no soloists. The Requiem was written about 30 years prior to Cornelius’ Stabat Mater, and as such, had more of a late Classical feel to the piece.

Above: Luigi Cherubini

The Requiem started with a menacing undertone that meandered forebodingly until the choir whispered into existence. You could immediately hear why Beethoven was so enamored of Cherubini’s music (even if the admiration apparently wasn’t requited). The Introit movement is such a delicately haunting piece of music, where the choral colors really float in the domed sound of St. Bartholomew’s.

What I find so interesting about requiems is how differently each composer tackles the same text. Verdi’s Dies Irae and Fauré’s Pie Jesu, for instance, are so different from any others. And similarly, Cherubini’s treatment of these texts is uniquely sublime.

Cherubini’s Dies Irae feels like it has the same Judgment Day focus that other settings of the text have, but with a more distinctly moderated Classical feeling.

I liked the treatment that the musicians gave the Pie Jesu. It was hauntingly beautiful and so elegantly performed. The orchestra’s deftness of sound was noteworthy.

The Agnus Dei closed out the Requiem and was perhaps my favorite movement of the entire piece. It had moments of fanfare but also the quiet intimacy that highlighted the text beautifully. There was a recurring descending motif throughout the entire movement that was passed around all the different voices, bringing a cohesive shape and symbolically tying all of the musicians together. The movement ended with that theme swirling around and the choir sustaining a sort of hum that ended not with a bang, but a forceful whisper, just like the Requiem had started with.

~ Mark Anthony Martinez II

Gilda Cruz-Romo (photo above by Bill Hendrickson) sings the title-role in Ponchielli’s LA GIOCONDA in a performance given at Milwaukee in 1981. Harry Theyard is Enzo, Guillermo Sarabia is Barnaba, Susanne Marsee is Laura, Freda Rakusin is La Cieca, and Ralph Bassett is Alvise. The conductor is Joseph Rescigno.

Listen here.

~ Author: Oberon

Above: tenor Paul Appleby, this afternoon’s Don Ottavio; photo by Jonathan Tichler

Saturday November 15th, 2025 – Sixty-two years ago, almost to the day, I saw DON GIOVANNI for the first time; it was my first-ever performance at the (Old) Met. Waiting for today’s matinee at the (‘New’) Met to start, memories of that experience – and of all that has happened in my operatic world in the interim – raced thru my mind: I was 15 at the time of that long-ago DON GIOVANNI, and had already been obsessed with opera for 4 years. I couldn’t have predicted that the obsession would last – and grow exponentially – through the ensuing decades. 

This afternoon’s cast included three singers who were new to me: Quanqun Yu as Donna Anna, Andrea Carroll as Zerlina, and Tommaso Barea as Leporello. All fared well. 

Under the baton of the Met’s Principal Guest Conductor Daniele Rustioni, the overture was both grand and lively. Mr. Barea, who sings mainly baritone roles, brought a different quality to the role of Leporello than that of the usual basso buffo. His opening scene augured well for the performance.  Ms. Yu (Donna Anna) and our Don Giovanni, Kyle Ketelsen, argued bitterly until the huge and magnificent voice of Soloman Howard’s Commendatore intercedes; his daughter rushes off to summon help. Moments later, a gunshot rings out. Ms. Yu returns with her betrothed, Don Ottavio, in the person of tenor Paul Appleby, to find her father bleeding to death. The soprano/tenor vengeance duet is swiftly and surely sung; I took an immediate liking to both of these voices: Ms. Yu’s with a luminous yet penetrating quality, and Mr. Appleby’s suave lyricism, always showing tenderness towards his beloved..

As Donna Elvira, Anita Hartig, her voice in full-bloom, arrives with her dramatic opening “Ah! fuggi il traditor“, its fireworks effortlessly tossed off. The soprano’s tendency to go very slightly sharp from time to time becomes less notceable as the afternoon progresses. Encountering the man who defiled and abandoned her, their dialogue draws some embellishing from Kyle Ketelsen’s Don Giovanni, who leaves his jilted victim to be comforted by Mr. Barea’s excellent Catalog Aria, into which he weaves some subtle turns of phrase.

The peasant couple, Zerlina (Andrea Carroll) and Masetto (Brandon Cedel), arrive. Their opening duo is taken a bit too swiftly, but they make it work. Ms. Carroll’s voice is lovely, and though Zerlina is usually thought of as a soubrette, I can hear a lyrisicm in the soprano’s singing that make me think she’ll one day be a Mimi and Liu. Mr. Cedel did not overdo the buffo aspects of Masetto’s music, displaying a handsome and affable voice throughout the afternoon. 

Mr. Ketelsen’s expertise in making recititives mean something leads him into his enticingly-sung “La ci darem la mano“; Ms. Carroll soon learns that resistance is futile; they duet beautifully…but the sudden entrance of Ms. Hartig to sing a fiery “Ah, fuggi il traditor” cuts the seduction short. In the ensuing quartet we hear a nice blending of timbres.

Ms. Yu, having recognized the Don as her father’s murderer, recounts that fatal encounter to Don Ottavio; the soprano’s savourable top notes as she describes how she escaped being raped draw Mr. Appleby’s sigh of relief with his heavenly-sung “Respiro!” Ms. Yu’s vengeance aria, “Or sai chel’onore!“, produced a thrilling flow of notes, vibrantly sung. The soprano added a mini-cadenza, up to a shimmering top note, before sailing on to the aria’s furious finish. 

Mr. Appleby now held the House under a spell with his ravishing “Dalla sua pace“, some of the most beautiful singing I’ve ever heard. The tenor’s deeply-felt sense of poetry, and his control of the voice in piano/piamissimo phrases, felt like a gift from heaven. His hushed singing of the melody’s reprise seemed to make time stand still, and his re-affirming of his devotion with a powerful “Morte mi da...” underscored Ottavio’s steadfastness before the reflective final bars of the aria.  

Kyle Ketelsen took the whirwind pace of the Drinking Song, “Finch’an dal vino“, in his stride. Ms. Carroll’s “Batti, batti…” was lovingly sung, and the Mask Trio of Mlles. Yu and Hartig and Mr. Appleby produced appealing harmonies. The great ensemble that ends Act I found Maestro Rustioni in speed-demon mode…but he has it all under control. 

The intermission seemed endless, but at last we were back for a witty dialogue between master and servant; Mssrs. Ketelsen and Berea tricked Ms. Hartig’s Donna Elvira – whose “Ah, taci, ingiusto core” displayed how effortlessly present this soprano’s voice is in the House – into believing Leporello was actually Giovanni. This allowed the Don to serenade Elvira’s maid with his suavely seductive singing of “Deh, vieni alla finestra”. Masetto/Cedel gets beaten up by Don Giovanni’s thugs, and Zerlina/Carroll arrives to soothe her good-hearted boyfriend with the charming “Vedrai, carino…” to which she added some jewel-like embellishments. 

Mozart’s mastery of ensemble writing shines in the sextet that follows: Ms. Yu singing sounds luscious, Mr. Appleby chimes in beautifully, and Mr. Barea phrases so well, with a dash of humor as he seeks to make his escape.

Mr. Appleby’s Don Ottavio strikes gold for the second time this afternoon with “Il mio tesoro” wherein Maestro Rustioni provides perfect support. The tenor’s pliant lyricism and magically sustained tones are to the fore, and his breath-control is remarkable…as are his subtle embellishments, which gave me moments of pure delight. The tenor’s masterful singing unleashed cries of “Bravo!” from the crowd, but – like so many arias that are so finely sung at The Met these days – the applause only lasted a few moments. Back in the day, Mr. Appleby would have stopped the show twice with his ardent, elegant singing.

Ms. Hartig now took the stage for a splendid rendering of “Mi tradi“; the clarity and warmth of her tone, her poised technique, and her stylish ease in the agile passages drew the evening’s longest aria-applause…but still, nothing like what she deserved.

Don Giovanni and Leporello now meet at the tomb of the Commendatore to invite the ghost of the old gentleman to supper; Soloman Howard’s response was cool and collected, and Maestro Rustioni made another gem of this sometimes glossed-over scene. 

Mr. Appleby’s Don Ottavio almost loses patience with what he feels is Donna Anna’s coldness towards him since her father’s murder; he cites her cruelty. She responds, defending herself and asking for his understanding; her recitative ends with a heavenly, floated pianissimo on “Abastanza…” and she then embarks on a very exciting rendering of “Non mi dir“. Her shimmering softness in certain passages of the slow melody, her silvery etchings of the words, and her thoroughly accomplished coloratura polish off the aria brilliantly.

The audience chuckles as a theme from NOZZE DI FIGARO is played during Don Giovanni’s last supper. Ms. Hartig’s desperate Donna Elvira rushes in to beg the Don to repent; her pleading ends with a terrified scream when the bloodied ghost of the Commendatore appears. Here Soloman Howard’s thunderous voice doomed the decadent Don Giovanni to eternal suffering in Hell. Maestro Rustioni and his orchestra compellingly underscored the drama with their urgent playing. 

Donna Anna, Don Ottavio, Donna Elvira, Leporello, Zerlina, and Masetto join in the opera’s finale before going their separate ways. During their bows, the audience finally gave the singers the kind of applause they’d been deserving all thru the opera.

~ Oberon

Sir Donald McIntyre (photo above as the Flying Dutchman) has passed away at the age of 91. A native of Auckland, NZ, he made his operatic debut in 1959 as Zaccaria in NABUCCO at the Welsh National Opera. He went on to sing on the opera world’s greatest stages: at Covent Garden, La Scala, Bayreuth, and The Met (among others). 

Sir Donald gave 120 performances at The Met, debuting there in 1975 as the RHEINGOLD Wotan (and singing in WALKURE and SIEGFRIED as well). His other Met roles were Pizarro in FIDELIO, Telramund, Orestes, Kurwenal, the Speaker in MAGIC FLUTE, Klingsor, Shaklovity in KHOVANSCHINA, Hans Sachs (a veritable triumph), the Doctor in WOZZECK, Count Waldner in ARABELLA, and Dr. Kolenaty in THE MAKROPULOS CASE (his last Met role, in 1996). At other opera centers, he took on the Dutchman, Debussy’s Golaud, and Wagner’s Gurnemanz.

In 1976, Sir Donald was chosen by Pierre Chéreau and Pierre Boulez to sing Wotan/The Wanderer in the mind-blowing Centenary RING at Bayreuth. The production, ferociously booed at its premiere, received a 90-minute ovation at its final presentation five seasons later.  McInyre won an Emmy in 1982 for the recording of the Cycle.

In 1985, the much-loved singer was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. 

M. Chéreau called on Sir Donald once again when he staged ELEKTRA for the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2013. This was to be Chéreau’s final production. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted. Sir Donald was cast as the Old Servant, and another veteran – Franz Mazura – played the role of Orestes’ Tutor. The sight of McIntyre emerging from the dingy palace and kneeling at the feet of Orestes was one of the most moving moments of the production. 

Now Sir Donald’s in Valhalla, with so many other great Wagnerians from his (and my) era.  Ruhe! Ruhe, Du Gott!

Here are three of my favorite souvenirs of the McIntyre career:

As Wotan in the finale of DAS RHEINGOLD here.

Wotan’s fury…from Act II of the Chéreau WALKURE here.

As Hans Sachs: the “Wahnmonolog” here.