[Met Performance] CID:350100
Idomeneo {50} Metropolitan Opera House: 10/03/2001.
(Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
October 3, 2001
IDOMENEO {50}
Mozart-Varesco
Idomeneo................Plácido Domingo
Ilia....................Dawn Upshaw
Idamante................Susan Graham
Elettra.................Carol Vaness
Arbace..................Mark Oswald
High Priest.............Antonio Barasorda
Voice of Neptune........John Relyea
Woman...................Sandra Lopez
Woman...................Deanne Meek
Soldier.................Tony Stevenson
Soldier.................Alfred Walker
Conductor...............James Levine
Production..............Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
Designer................Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
Lighting designer.......Gil Wechsler
Stage Director..........David Kneuss
Review of John W. Freeman in OPERA NEWS
The revival of the Met's "Idomeneo" (Oct. 3) was dominated by Plácido Domingo's deepening interpretation of the title role. Like most since Mozart's time, he used a simplified version of the "Fuor del mar" aria, with less coloratura bravado. The opera's final aria, "Torna la pace," written to gratify the ego of Mozart's first Idomeneo, unduly holds up the denouement and is often left out, as it was here. As befits a sovereign, Domingo never seemed stressed by the role, paying as much attention to its dramatic function as to its vocal demands. During the recognition scene with Idamante, his feigned, pained coldness toward his son seemed to be tearing him apart inwardly; in the public scene that followed, he could only look on with terrible sadness as the young man withered before his imagined rejection. Anguished over his foolish sacrificial vow, the tenor never looked happy or relieved until the very end. His singing, like his acting, combined restraint, nobility and concentrated emotional expression without stretching the stylistic limits of the music.
Surrounding this strong central figure, the other soloists and the chorus likewise tended to business, giving the solidity as well as the lyricism of Mozart's score its due. High points were the choral "Placido č il mar," as Idamante and Electra prepared for an embarkation that didn't take place, and the innovative trio and quartet with which Mozart expanded the opera-seria format. Dawn Upshaw, allowed by the Jean-Pierre Ponnelle staging to address the audience in eighteenth-century style,
offered a delicate, borderline-fragile Ilia. The soprano's hootiness in recitatives (when seated on the stage before her Act II "Zeffiretti" aria, for instance) was offset by a more direct, affecting manner in the arias and duets.
Her Idamante, Susan Graham, was up to every demand of this farther-reaching role. Graham's pliant mezzo made every emotional state and transition clear, from affectionate (with Ilia) to somber and courageous (when facing Idamante's destiny) to heartbroken (with Idomeneo). Elettra, in Ponnelle's production, is a sorceress type (as in Handel), wild and unkempt (as in Strauss's "Elektra"). Carol Vaness, obliged by this concept to overact, oversang as well. Her wild dramatic outcries threw off sparks and excitement, leaving some rough spots and wavery held tones in "Idol mio," her one chance to regain musical composure. Mark Oswald, Antonio Barasorda and John Relyea served with dignified vocal presence as Arbace, the High Priest and the Voice of Neptune, respectively. James Levine's warm textures and roomy tempos, notably in the sacrifice scene of Act III, gave "Idomeneo" a Gluckian stateliness and
sobriety.