’Tis the season to be indisposed. James Levine, vaunted music director of the Met, languishes on the injured list, having torn a rotator cuff in a fall at his other post, the Boston Symphony. As he awaits surgery, his opera company scrambles to find replacement conductors for Fidelio, Don Pasquale, Lohengrin and Parsifal, not to mention a post-season tour of Japan. And on Monday night the Met opened an ambitious revival of Luisa Miller with substitutes filling both central roles. Sometimes it must be an achievement just to get the curtain up.
Had Verdi’s simplistic adaptation of Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe gone as planned, Barbara Frittoli would have undertaken the title role opposite Neil Shicoff as Rodolfo. But she cancelled all her appearances, for reasons unclear, and he pulled out of the prima pleading illness. Enter Veronica Villarroël as the gentle heroine and Eduardo Villa as her swain. Although the blood, guts and pretty tunes survived the switches, all was not bliss. The lovely soprano, who is not even on the roster this year, vacillated between exquisite pianissimo phrases and squally screams. The portly tenor demonstrated remarkable fervour and potential sensitivity, despite intermittent loss of control.
Otherwise it was an up-and-down evening. The production – staged by Elijah Moshinsky in 2001 and designed by Santo Loquasto – framed the concert-in-costume innocently. Carlos Alvarez as the paternal Miller began with baritonal bluster and ended with elegance. James Morris as the antagonistic Walter concentrated on nasty-basso snarling. Phillip Ens dealt persuasive slime as vile Wurm, and Irina Mishura made much of the ungrateful duties assigned to the heroine’s mezzo- soprano rival, Federica. Tamara Mumford attracted major attention in the minor platitudes of an incidental peasant.
In the pit Maurizio Benini kept the drama crisp, the music graceful and the balances deft. He has been drafted, not incidentally, to take over the first seven performances of Don Pasquale for Levine. This is reassuring. ★★★☆☆
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