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[Met Performance] CID:294400



Cavalleria Rusticana
Pagliacci
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, November 4, 1988

Debut : Alessandro Siciliani, Bruno Pola, Ilona Tokody







Cavalleria Rusticana received twelve performances this season.
Pagliacci received twelve performances this season.

Review 1:

Review of Peter Wynne in the Hackensack New Jersey Record

Twin bill at the Met marks a less-than-triumphant debut

Controversy is about the last thing an opera buff expects at "Cavalleria Rusticana" and "Pagliacci," especially at the Metropolitan Opera. Though shockers when they were new, the operas themselves are long past controversy now. The two have been part of the standard repertoire for nearly a century. And the Met's Franco Zeflirelli production of the two works has been a favorite with opera-goers since its 1970 premiere. The twin bill was actually the first of a series of sprawling, super-realistic Zeffirelli productions that reached a kind of peak with his "Turandot" two seasons back.

But this weekend, a new conductor was at the helm as "Cavalleria Rusticana" and "Pagliacci" returned to the Met for the first time since the 1985-86 season. Alessandro Siciliani was making his company debut, four years after he first was seen at Lincoln Center conducting Puccini's "La Rondine" across the plaza at the New York City Opera. That earlier debut had been a triumph; this was something else. Siciliani evidently decided to try stripping away some of the performance traditions that have come to surround "Cav" and "Pag," as the two are familiarly called. Conventional wisdom is that both are rather crudely fashioned from a musical point of view and that they gain power from performances that emphasize passion and almost relentless drive.

By contrast, Siciliani seemed to always be searching for the lyricism in the two operas. His tempi were deliberate and expansive; in his rhythms, he was seeking far greater flexibility than usual, starting a phrase slowly and then accelerating it with a snap, for example, or holding a note past the center of the beat to give a phrase that breathless quality of a Chopin waltz. He brought out things in the orchestration that even a seasoned operagoer had probably never heard before, but he also presided over a bit of musical havoc, especially in "Cavalleria Rusticana." Dozens of times during Friday night's performance, pit and stage were out of sync, usually with the orchestra racing ahead of the soloists. And just what led to the problem is hard to guess. In the excitement of making a Met debut, perhaps Siciliani inadvertently sped up tempi that had been agreed upon during rehearsals. Maybe he didn't have sufficient rehearsal time to work out an interpretation that aimed to differ so much from the ordinary.

Although the "Cavalleria" principals were singing their parts for the first time at the Met, the overwhelming majority are singers with years of experience. Among these are soprano Ghena Dimitrova as Santuzza, mezzo Gweneth Bean as Mamma Lucia, tenor Ermanno Mauro as Turiddu, and baritone Bruno Pola, making his Met debut as Alfio. Were these veterans unintentionally falling back into comfortable old ways, or fighting departures from tradition that a youthful Siciliani was trying to impose upon them?

Siciliani didn't come out for a curtain call after "Cavalleria Rusticana," which opened the bill; when he did come out after "Pagliacci," his appearance was greeted by a mixture of cheers and boos and a half-dozen whistles (which in opera is one step below throwing rotten eggs and vegetables). The orchestra players, however, stayed in the pit to cheer their maestro of the evening, and those folks usually are out the door and heading home seconds after the curtain falls.

I could have done without a few of Siciliani's innovations. (I found the way he held and held climactic notes a bit affected, for example.) But overall, he led a very engaging pair of performances. In fact, "Pagliacci" was really first-rate.

Mauro plays Canio as an alcoholic whose hold on his temper and even his grasp of reality are pretty shaky when he's drunk. It was a scary performance, and the tenor found a perfect foil in his Nedda, the Hungarian soprano Ilona Tokody, who was also making her Met debut. Tokody plays Nedda as an impulsive, willful woman-child and is a fine actress. However, her throaty vocal technique - especially at the lower end of her range - can be rather unattractive.

Search by season: 1988-89

Search by title: Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci,



Met careers

• Alessandro Siciliani [Conductor]
• Ghena Dimitrova [Santuzza]
• Ermanno Mauro [Turiddu]
• Gail Dubinbaum [Lola]
• Bruno Pola [Alfio]
• Gweneth Bean [Mamma Lucia]
• Franco Zeffirelli [Production]
• Gil Wechsler [Lighting Designer]
• Fabrizio Melano [Stage Director]
• Ilona Tokody [Nedda]
• Juan Pons [Tonio]
• Gregg Baker [Silvio]
• Anthony Laciura [Beppe]
• Ross Crolius [Villager]
• William Mellow [Villager]