Opera Reviews
29 March 2024
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Angela Meade and Elizabeth DeShong star in Rossini revival



by Steve Cohen

Rossini: Semiramide
Metropolitan Opera
March 2018

Semiramide is a challenging work. It is Gioachino Rossini’s last opera in Italian, in 1823, after which he moved in a new direction — towards the French grand opera Guillaume Tell which would be his last stage composition, in 1829.
                                               
Rossini had put behind his frothy comedies with their rippling melodies and in Semiramide was presenting a serious and deeply explorative work. His earlier style involved less attention to the orchestra. Now his instrumentation is weightier, with dramatic power. The duets, ensemble scenes and choruses have nobility and distinction.

The Metropolitan produced this opera in the 1890s, not again until 1990 and not at all in the past 25 years. It certainly is worth doing when distinguished voices are available, as they are now. The importance of this opera led me to attend not only a March 6 performance at the Met and also the HD cinema presentation by Fathom Events of the March 10 matinee.

The best things in this revival are Angela Meade in the dramatic coloratura title role and Elizabeth DeShong in the mezzo-soprano part of her antagonist, Arsace. Unknown to either of them, they are mother and son. Semiramide, the queen of Assyria (sometimes referred to as Babylon), conspired with her lover Assur to murder her husband, King Nino, fifteen years earlier. Everyone assumed that Semiramide’s young son perished at the same time. Now Arsace returns and the queen wants to marry him. Hamlet and Oedipus are seemingly combined.

The ghost of the dead king appears, calling for his son to avenge his murder, and this leads to a mad scene for the villainous bass Assur. Semiramide and Assur blame each other for being the instigator of the assassination in an Act II confrontation duet which is one of the production’s highlights. Semiramide contains impressively jagged and complex ensemble writing.

Meade’s rich and powerful tones suit the haughty queen. Her thrilling projection is even stronger than earlier in her career. She sings a firm high E above high C (not in the score, but traditional) near the end of her Act I aria, “Bel raggio lusinghier” ("A beautiful ray of hope.”) She’s in full command of trills, leaps, scales and legato, and compared to famous sopranos who have sung this role previously, Meade has more color in the mid and low part of her range.

DeShong has a smaller sized voice and is short, which suits her character’s young age. Yet her voice is warm, agile and homogeneous, and she is a perfect musical partner in her duets with Meade. DeShong lacks the gutsy chest tones of Marilyn Horne, who was at the center of this Met production in 1990, but her voice has a distinctive attractiveness of its own that deserves high praise.

Javier Camarena is stylish as the Indian prince Idreno. The Mexican tenor has a brilliant top and fluid command of ornamentation, although some ungainliness is evident in the low-lying passages of his Act II cabaletta.

The bass Ryan Speedo Green is solid as the high priest Oroe, the first person who discovers Arsace’s true identity. Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov looks good as the villainous Assur, tall and menacing, but he fudges many of his coloratura embellishments. He’s best in his mad scene which contains hardly any ornamental digressions. Curtis alumna Sara Shafer is sweet of sound and appearance in the brief role of Azema.

The chorus under the direction of Donald Palumbo sounds superb but looks awkward as it clumsily marches on and marches off in symmetrical formations. The stage direction, costumes and faux-Middle Eastern scenery look like tattered relics from Rossini’s century.

This landmark opera deserves stronger musical direction than it receives from Maurizio Benini. The overture is one of the best in all of opera, beginning in a whisper and building in volume and emotion. Here it was rushed, with inadequate power. (Bravo to the flute, piccolo and clarinet soloists who kept up with Benini’s high-speed direction.) In many parts of the opera, Benini uses acceleration in tempi but not enough dramatic inflection or punch.

Perhaps some creative stage direction could have added bite. Maybe we could have been persuaded that subconsciously there’s an attraction when a woman meets a young man who has so much in common with her. Ask Siegmund and Sieglinde. And some director might find ways to express Arsace’s mixed feelings about a mother who arranged the murder of his father. But the direction here was almost non-existent after 84-year-old John Copley was fired for making a sexually-implied comment to a member of the chorus.

It also would be interesting to see the principals and members of the court react to the fact that the 40-something queen is lusting for an adolescent. That’s an intriguing aspect of the drama, but it was not explored in the stage direction of this production.

The television direction by Barbara Willis Sweete, as seen in cinema houses around the world, improved on what we saw in person at the Met. Close-ups of the singers (and orchestral players) focused our attention on the music, rather than on the scenery and costumes — and that was beneficial.

Text © Steve Cohen
Photo © Ken Howard / Metropolitan Opera
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