The Metropolitan Opera's Don Carlo in HD
Broadcast Featuring Roberto Alagna Dec. 11
By: Susan Hall - Dec 08, 2010
On Tuesday, December 7, the Metropolitan Opera rehearsed for the HD of Don Carlo coming to the Berkshires this Saturday, December 11 at 12:30. Verdi’s most ambitious opera has a new production by Nicolas Hytner, the director of the London National Theater making his Met debut and conducted by Philadelphia’s magnificent new music director, Yannick Nezet-Seguin.
Marina Poplavskaya sings Elisabeth of Valois, who marries the King of Spain, the father of her great love, Don Carlo. The pieta scene in which she takes her lover/son into her lap, surrounded by black silk, shows it all. In undertaking the title role, Roberto Alagna has moved to a new richer, more mature voice of consummate beauty. He has always been a superior actor, but here, he buries the idea of Smurf. He is of huge stature, struggling as each of the characters does in his own way, to act on public duty over personal desire.
As rehearsals began for Don Carlo, the Met held a talk session. Alagna announced that, fool that he was, he was going to try Otello. That should be a wonderful treat.
Simon Keenlyside has almost a spoken singing voice, but is convincing as Rodrigo, who tries to play loyalty to both King father and alienated son. Ferruccio Furlanetto is the King Philip de jeur, a commanding bass, whose nine-minute monologue in which he bemoans his loveless marriage and also the difficulties of being King, is the exquisite heart of his role. Anna Smirnova gurgles her Princess Eboli, but perhaps the camera will cover her in the HD.
The set is black and white and red and often wonderfully dramatic. There are unfortunate errors in dressing the King and Queen in Lewis Carroll red and in the auto de fe which reflects none of the history of public confession.
Still this is a magnificent ensemble production and a must see.
Photo Credit Ken Howard, courtesy the Metropolitan Opera