[Met Performance] CID:263770
L'Elisir d'Amore {149} Metropolitan Opera House: 03/2/1981., Broadcast / Telecast
(Broadcast / Telecast
Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
March 2, 1981 Broadcast / Telecast
L'ELISIR D'AMORE {149}
Donizetti--F. Romani
Adina...................Judith Blegen
Nemorino................Luciano Pavarotti
Belcore.................Brent Ellis
Dr. Dulcamara...........Sesto Bruscantini
Giannetta...............Louise Wohlafka
Conductor...............Nicola Rescigno
Director................Nathaniel Merrill
Designer................Robert O'Hearn
Choreographer...........Todd Bolender
TV Director.............Kirk Browning
L'Elisir d'Amore received four performances this season.
Telecast: Live From The Met
Available for streaming at Met Opera on Demand
Review of Patrick J. Smith in opera (UK):
Pavarotti's only appearances at the Met this year are as Nemorino in "L'Elisir d'Amore," the first performance of which was televised on March 2. It is correct to place Pavarotti above the opera, and the composer, whose name is Donizetti, for his relentlessly overacted portrait of the amiable "scimunito" occupied stage centre, left and right, shamelessly up-staging all around him. I trust he will tone things down when the cameras go away. This role, of course, defines the character Pavarotti and his adoring public have created for him, but it is now so outsized in its radiant infantilism - and, it must be said, so charismatic - that it throws into the background everything else: certainly Brent Ellis's pallid Belcore, but also Judith Blegen's well-sung (if one-dimensional) Adina, who bore the brunt of Pavarotti's up-staging antics. Sesto Burscantini's Dulcamara, if today without the vocal resources of yesterday, demonstrated the power that a graceful elegance can have, even against this hurricane, but when surrounded by the very broad production of Nathaniel Merrill it looked both lonely and out of place.
Pavarotti's voice is huge, and always dead on pitch, but its lack of variety of colour and dynamic is now such that he must resort to stage tricks for his effects. His prosaic singing of "Una furtiva lagrima" brought down the house, but it only operates at a forte level. In the second strophe Pavarotti attempted a pianissimo, but the woofy huffing that emerged caused him to abandon the experiment and revert to the comfortable full voice. But then, it is Pavarotti's show, and that show, apart from the very size of the voice, has increasingly little to do with the art of singing. Nicola Rescigno conducted.