[Met Performance] CID:351262
United States Premiere
Cyrano de Bergerac {1} Metropolitan Opera House: 05/13/2005.
(Debuts: Natasha Katz, Rick Sordelet, Thomas Baird
Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
May 13, 2005
United States Premiere
CYRANO DE BERGERAC {1}
Alfano-Cain
Cyrano de Bergerac......Plácido Domingo
Roxane..................Sondra Radvanovsky
Christian...............Raymond Very
De Guiche...............Anthony Michaels-Moore
Ragueneau...............Roberto de Candia
Le Bret.................Julien Robbins
Ligničre................Andrew Gangestad
Montfleury..............Bernard Fitch
Vicomte de Valvert......Brian Davis
Carbon..................Louis Otey
The Duenna..............Sheila Nadler
Lisa....................Jennifer Check
The Spanish Official....Brian Davis
A Cook..................Roger Andrews
A Musketeer.............Richard Pearson
A Lay Sister............Jennifer Check
Sister Marta............Diane Elias
Sentinel................David Frye
Sentinel................Gregory Cross
Conductor...............Marco Armiliato
Production..............Francesca Zambello
Set Designer............Peter J. Davison
Costume Designer........Anita Yavich
Lighting Designer.......Natasha Katz [Debut]
Fight Director..........Rick Sordelet [Debut]
Choreographer...........Thomas Baird [Debut]
Production gift of the Gramma Fisher Foundation, Marshalltown, Iowa, and
Bertita and Guillermo L. Martinez
[No previous performances in the United States of Cyrano de Bergerac have been traced.]
Production photos of Cyrano de Bergerac by Ken Howard / Metropolitan Opera.
Review of John Freeman in the August 2005 issue of OPERA NEWS
Franco Alfano (1875-1954), the composer who got stuck with the thankless job of finishing Puccini's "Turandot," also wrote eleven operas of his own, one of them unperformed, another incomplete. Of the more successful ones - "Risurrezione" (1904), "Sakuntala" (1921) and "Madonna Imperia" (1927) - the last was the only one to appear at the Met. Giuseppe Barnboschek, who conducted RimskyKorsakov's "Le Coq d'Or" on the double bill with "Madonna Imperia," recalled it decades later as "an interesting work, too modern for the audience" (i.e., too much recitative, not enough melody); it lasted only six performances in the spring of 1928. Now, Alfano's penultimate opera, "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1936), has joined the Met as a vehicle for Plácido Domingo.
The Met premiere on May 13 didn't reveal a neglected masterpiece, but it did introduce a poised, entertaining work in an animated, beautifully conceived production by Francesca Zambello, which is shared with London's Royal Opera and will be presented there next spring. Henri Cain's French libretto is excerpted from Edmond Rostand's tried and true 1897 "comédie larmoyante" about a man too homely to succeed as a lover, but with a poetic heart of gold, who acts as a ventriloquist to woo his dream girl on behalf of a handsome, but tongue-tied, rival. (The French subject matter was a comfortable fit for the Neapolitan-born composer, whose mother was French.) There's a historic basis, also an infusion of Don Quixote, behind the title character, first heard on the opera stage in a "Cyrano" by Walter Damrosch at the Met in 1913. (With an English libretto by the critic W. J. Henderson, this featured Pasquale Amato and Frances Alda, but like "Madonna Imperia" it lasted only a half-dozen performances.)
In the [first] scene of Alfano's eclectic score, Cyrano has to improvise a ballad while dueling with the Vicomte de Valvert, fortunately not a very quick adversary. With his voice sounding as firm as usual, and with carefully thought-out acting, Domingo brought poignancy to the scene in Ragueneau's bakery, when it gradually dawned on him that Roxane's loving words were meant not for him but for a fellow guardsman, the cadet Christian. Later, when feeding flowery lines to Christian as the latter tried to court Roxane from beneath her balcony, Domingo (with warmth welling up in the orchestra) could convince anyone he was pouring his heart out. At the end of the opera, playing a man fifteen years older and on the brink of death, he conveyed sadness and relief in confessing at last that all the passion voiced on Christian's behalf had been his own.
A combination of cool assurance and tight vibrato served Sondra Radvanovsky's Roxane with the expressive means to scold Christian for his seeming indifference, then to respond impulsively to his apparent newfound eloquence, finally to realize it was Cyrano who had been speaking to her all along. Except for some open-throated duet moments and a big battlefield aria of dramatic desperation, Roxane's part (like most of the opera) launches melodic flights only sparingly, but the soprano gave strong pinions to every one that came her way; the rest of the time, she did her best to limber up the stretches of dialogue. Tenor Raymond Very acted Christian's awkward courtship amusingly and sang pleasantly, while baritone Anthony Michaels-Moore grumbled as the haughty, disagreeable De Guiche. The supporting players, notably Sheila Nadler (an amusing Duenna) and Jennifer Check (two vignettes), all gave distinctive portrayals and sang with gusto.
Director Zarnbello busied her players with interaction that fitted the flow of Alfano's lively or discreetly touching music, led with alert sensitivity by conductor Marco Armiliato. There was tight coordination, too, among the mobile, elegantly spare sets by Peter J. Davison, blowsy Three Musketeers-era costumes by Anita Yavich, atmospheric lighting by Natasha Katz, strenuous fights (staged by Rick Sordelet) and dances (by Thomas Baird). After intermission, the opera's tone turns sober - battle scene, quiet epilogue - but with their theatrical savvy, the composer and librettist don't give boredom a chance to set in. A production as handsome as this, both in its visuals and in its teamwork, was just what Domingo's flamboyant, thoughtful Cyrano needed to clinch it.