A Heroine (and a Star) at
Risk
October 1, 2003
The soprano Renee Fleming, for all her greatness
and success, has insecurities like almost everyone else. To protect herself,
she has often said, she has hidden behind unfamiliar repertory. Over the years
she has sung certain well-known roles, like Mozart's Fiordiligi and Strauss's
Marschallin, but she has avoided the iconic Puccini and Verdi roles, the money
parts. You can't sing Tosca without expecting painstaking comparisons with
earlier classic performances. Instead, Ms. Fleming has sought less familiar roles
that challenge her, from Rossini's Armida to Carlisle Floyd's Susannah.
This career strategy
changed dramatically on Monday night, when the Metropolitan Opera opened its
new season with Verdi's "Traviata." Ms. Fleming starred as Violetta,
a role that she tried out last spring at the Houston Grand Opera and that is
among the handful of the most famous in the repertory. Singing her first
Violetta at the Met on an occasion of such high visibility just added to the
significance of this risky step.
Ms. Fleming triumphed,
giving perhaps her strongest overall performance at the Met. And the company
could not have provided better support. The conductor Valery Gergiev has had an
erratic relationship with the Met's orchestra and chorus, but this time he
elicited inspired work from everyone.
Add to this the tenor Ramon
Vargas's ardent and Italianate portrayal of Alfredo and the charismatic
baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky's elegantly impassioned Giorgio Germont, and it
was almost possible to forget that you were watching Franco Zeffirelli's clunky
and grandiose 1998 production.
Violetta is thought to be a
special challenge because the character's emotional development is reflected in
music that requires a different vocal style from act to act. The
independent-minded courtesan of the opening act expresses her defiance of
conventional 19th-century Parisian morality through music replete with
brilliant coloratura flights. The second act finds Violetta living contentedly
in a country house outside Paris with the smitten Alfredo, until the arrival of
Alfredo's father, Germont, a man of stern rectitude. Here the role requires the
weightier colorings of a classic lirico spinto Verdi soprano.
In the final act, the
tubercular Violetta's death scene, the soprano must shift from expressions of
ethereal lyricism to intensely dramatic outbursts. The vocal demands are so
varied that the role is thought by some to be ill conceived.
Ms. Fleming's performance,
however, convinced you that Verdi knew exactly what he was doing. In mid-19th-century
Italy, bel canto opera may have been on its way out, but the principles of bel
canto singing, which valued evenness of sound and great technical agility, were
still the norm. Ms. Fleming's vocal artistry is steeped in those principles.
She handled the roulades
and runs of Act I with assurance and grace, yet you never felt that she was
simply dispatching fancy passage work. If anything, Ms. Fleming has sometimes
been faulted for singing that can seem affectedly expressive. But here every
interpretive turn, from her pure-toned shaping of arching melodic lines to her
breathy intonation of Violetta's self-doubting utterances, seemed born of a
dramatic impulse and touchingly natural.
In Act I, left alone after
Alfredo's impulsive avowal of love, Ms. Fleming boldly let the silence linger. Then,
as if the thought had just occurred to her, she sang in halting phrases, "E strano! E strano!" ("It's strange"). Violetta suspects that she is
mortally ill. Could Alfredo be weakening her resolve to live and die alone? Ms.
Fleming had you believing that she was discovering this scene, one of the best
known in opera, as she went along.
In the "Sempre
libera" cabaletta, sung with bright, clear sound and refreshing rhythmic
integrity, Ms. Fleming tossed a Champagne glass into the fireplace before
tearing into the coloratura flourishes of the final verse. Her wild-eyed
intensity made Violetta's declaration of independence, fueled by drink, seem
suspiciously forced. In their Act II scene together, Mr. Hvorostovsky's dusky
baritone and Ms. Fleming's rich soprano blended beautifully, like strong black
coffee with fresh cream.
Throughout Ms. Fleming
seemed empowered by Mr. Gergiev's palpable support from the pit. Though a
notably impetuous conductor, he was attentive to every tug and pull of Ms.
Fleming's phrasing. In the melting melodies of the final act aria "Addio,
del passato," which Ms. Fleming sang mostly while prostrate onstage, Mr.
Gergiev cushioned her poignantly expansive singing with tenderly undulant
shaping of the orchestral accompaniment. He understands that this standard
Verdian oom-pah-pah is actually a sophisticated musical device.
In the years since the
production was introduced, the Met has cleared some of the clutter in the
boisterous masquerade party scene in Act II. How about also getting rid of
those vulgar crimson draperies? A posh Parisian salon should not look like a
flophouse. John Pascoe has designed new, simpler costumes for Ms. Fleming, who
looked lovely. Over all, the stage director Laurie Feldman has done effective
work with the cast.
The news, though, is Ms.
Fleming's Violetta. With the support of Mr. Gergiev and the company, she made
this staple, performed all too often for its own good, suddenly seem a fresh,
psychologically astute and daring musical drama.
October 2003
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