Like picking a growth stock, the Opera Company of Philadelphia showed shrewd judgment by engaging sopranos (for two of its four 2004/05 productions) who promptly became media darlings.
Unfortunately, when the time came for Anna Netrebko, hugely touted by her record company, to sing in Don Pasquale, the stunning Russian soprano cancelled on the grounds of exhaustion. With Angela Brown, who created a stir with her Aida at the Metropolitan Opera last fall, the company again appeared dogged by bad luck, as illness forced her out of the premiere. But on Sunday she sang the second performance at the Academy of Music with no sign of diminished faculties. Brown lacks Netrebko's figure but has a fine, full-bloomed soprano that rides handsomely over the most sonorous of Verdi's ensembles. And her easy, unforced production of tone adds to the appeal. She took charge in "Ritorna vincitor" as if to assert that now the drama is really under way. But there is some unsteadiness in the middle register, the voice falls short of an ideal roundness of tone and one sometimes missed an arching sense of line. The treacherous high C in her second aria, "O patria mia", hit squarely but cautiously, was not the crowning moment that it should be.
Brown may not be the answer to the prayers of Verdians, but she should have ample opportunity to prove her worth. She headed a solid, well-balanced cast that included the arresting young tenor Dongwon Shin, singing his first-ever Radames as a late replacement. He ran into some difficulties in the break between middle and upper registers, but his high notes were secure, attractive and ringing, and he sang with dramatic involvement. Barbara Dever's Amneris favoured blazing temperament over regal bearing, and Gregg Baker, in burly voice, was a fiercely warlike Amonasro. Morris Robinson's wonderfully sumptuous bass made him a splendid king of Egypt, but another robust bass, Tigran Martirossian, tended to swallow his words as the high priest Ramfis. The attractive traditional sets, designed by Claude Girard and Bernard Uzan for L'Opéra de Montréal, emphasise function over spectacle, and Robert Driver's direction holds no surprises. Corrado Rovaris, the company's new music director, set agreeable tempos and maintained good co-ordination between stage and pit.
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