TheLittleSongbird
This particular series has been an interesting one, if not entirely consistent. L'Elisir D'Amore is one of Donizetti's very best, tuneful, funny and charming that is more depth to it under the surface. So I was worried about whether it would work, whether it would sparkle or not or whether the production would be beautiful or ugly. Thank goodness that the production belonged to in the former category. After the disappointment of the closing of the previous season that was La Traviata, it was refreshing to see a start to the season that sparkled, staying true to the spirit of the opera while showing that there is more to the opera than you think.Is it is very best of the season-opening Met Opera Live in HD series? Not quite. I'd give that honour to Anna Bolena, followed by Das Rheingold. It's still infinitely better than the terrible Tosca that started the forth season, that and Hansel and Gretel are for me the worst of the entire series.Back to this production, visually it is very pretty to look at. The sets are almost like looking at seasonal paintings, all in soft brown and almost like a spring setting. The costumes are simple and quite rustic yet also very attractive. I found the staging to be truly remarkable, I could really tell that stage director Bartlett Sher cared for the opera and that he understood it-unlike Luc Bondy for Tosca-, the rapport between Nemorino and Adina is delightful as is that of Nemorino and Dulcamara but also there is much more to the production than that. The idea to reveal the class difference between Nemorino and Adina was wonderful and done really nicely, while the characters are more than one-sided stereotypes.Musically, it really flows and brings so much character and vitality to what is going on on stage. Maybe Maurizio Benini's conducting is a little too rushed and hard-driven in ensembles, but this is a conducting job done with style and zest. The orchestral playing is equally marvellous, it has a lot of energy, yet for Una Furtiva Lagrima- an aria I long misunderstood the meaning of until I saw a Placido Domingo masterclass- there are nuances also. The chorus are right up to the task, well-blended and strong vocals and acting that doesn't resort to posturing, static poses or mugging.As for the principal performances, all four of them make a very positive impression. Matthew Polenzani is a breath of fresh air as Nemorino. He has a beautiful and endearingly youthful purity of tone with soaring unstrained high notes and great style. Not to mention the melting honeyed phrasing in Una Furtiva Lagrima. This is the best I've seen him act as well, before he came across as somebody who was dashing and likable with a wonderful voice but didn't do quite enough beyond that. But because Sher's direction and attention to characterisation is so good, Polenzani I feel has more to work with. He is ardent and charming, but also hot-headed and easily frustrated, the latter of which I don't always see from Nemorinos.Anna Netrebko I am not a fan of, neither am I a detractor. She has done a lot of stuff I like, but also some that I didn't care for. I think she has a beautiful and quite dark voice that is good in the right repertoire, she is pretty, she is very musical and she is a good actress, however her diction needs work, as does her colouratura and tuning. I do think that here she is very good as Adina, maybe her earlier performance with Villazon saw her in fresher and lighter voice but she nonetheless sings beautifully and even with the odd smudged run the way she shapes phrases is done with character and intelligence. I love how she starts off making Adina earthy, feisty and somewhat shrewish but later she is poignant, humble and almost shimmering.In the role of the quack Dulcamara, a character who always greatly amuses me, Ambrogio Maestri is superb. I have seen Maestri before, as an excellent Falstaff, Nabucco and Tonio. He is a complete natural on stage, he is hilarious and his comic timing deliciously droll, a big part of why his duet with Polenzani was such a hit. His voice is in great shape as well, large, unforced and with many colours and even with its size it never lets the pattering, crisply articulated by Maestri, lag. Whether he is my favourite Dulcamara I am not sure, I will always have a fondness for Simone Alaimo in the 1996 production, what I am certain about is that here I loved Maestri's performance and hope to see more of him.The performance of Mariusz Kweicien is perhaps the weakest of the four, and that is not to say he was bad. Kweicien is no stranger to me either, I remember his wicked Enrico, characterful Malatesta and virile Don Giovanni very well and liked him very much in all of those. As Belcore in this performance he is just as great, his singing is hearty, lyrical and somewhat seductive in places, he looks natural on stage. The only reason why he isn't quite as good as the others is not because he performs badly, just that while the other three characters were realised and characterised with nothing standing out as questionable there were times where Belcore comes across as too much of a crude bully.Having to choose which was my favourite performance it is hard to say and, but for singing Polenzani and for overall performance Maestri. All in all, this is a really excellent production of one of Donizetti's best operas, and if the seventh season starts off this good it makes me excited about what is going to come next. 9/10 Bethany Cox
