| LOUISA MILLER - last night | |
| Last Edit: singleticket 02:06 pm EDT 04/07/18 | |
| Posted by: singleticket 01:56 pm EDT 04/07/18 | |
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| A triumph of casting and great singing (as well as some good acting) over a dreary and boilerplate production. Which is just what a large section of the MET audience wants and in this case I wouldn't argue with them. Placido Domingo at age 70 or 80 something performing the role of Miller for the first time in his career gave a solid musical and dramatic performance. Sondra Yoncheva is a great dramatically commanding soprano. And I think I like tenor Piotr Beczala so much that I would see him in any future performance. I love his voice and his stage presence is just right for me, passionate enough to suit the role but never descending into a slobbery mess of mawkishness. Schiller fan that I am, I made the mistake of reading the source material LOVE AND INTRIGUE/KABAL UND LIEBE and I think Verdi and his librettist Salvadore Cammarano did a rather sloppy job. They successfully transplanted the play's melodramatic plot but softened so much of what was revolutionary about Schiller's "Bourgeois Tragedy" that it robbed the material of much of its power. The fascinating character of Lady Milford, in Schiller's original, a courtesan who through her position at court has become a powerful political asset, has been turned into the much more respectable Frederica by Verdi's librettists. In Schiller's original, the striving bourgeois father schemes to marry off his son to a high class prostitute so their family can get a better footing in court. It's still there somewhat in Verdi's opera but it's far less craven. I don't feel the same way about Verdi's libretto of Schiller's DON CARLOS which I think successfully transfers many more layers of what is powerful in Schiller's drama to the operatic stage. |
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