The DEVIL take this weather!

Well folks, my planned sojourns to the Metropolitan Opera's performances in Central Park of La Boheme and Faust on Tuesday and Wednesday were severely hampered, if not ruined, by maleficent (although saying "hellish" would be going a bit too far) atmospheric conditions. Normally, I love going to these concerts because it's a chance to enjoy music in relaxed, informal, and gorgeous surroundings. Not to mention being able to get some grass under my feet and ogle all the cute babies and gorgeous picnic dinners. This year, I was interested in La Boheme mainly because it will likely be my last chance to hear the marvelous Hei-Kyung Hong under Met auspices (she isn't singing there next season and, as I've said before, rumor has it that her contract has been bought out) even though I'm not sure Mimi entirely suits her, for reasons I can't articulate. I would have also liked to have seen Mary Dunleavy as Musetta, a role I don't think she has sung in the house. Faust, once my favorite opera and still high on the list, featured two singers new to the Met family, as well as artists who I had already developed strong liking for.

I should have known on Tuesday. It was raining horribly, and I think even hailing, around 3PM, but stopped pretty quickly. I tried calling the Met right before I left work to see if there was a cancellation, but the line was constantly busy, presumably because everyone was calling for the same reasons I was. When I got home I decided to chance it. So armed with my folding chair, some kiwi fruit, peaches, and plums (but no umbrella!), I went up to Central Park - accidentally taking the E traininstead the C train and having to wait forever while changing at Seventh Avenue! The policemen and park people I talked to seemed to think everything was OK, but once I was about hundred feet into the park, drops started falling from the sky. And falling. Within a minute it was "cats and dogs" territory. I used my chair to fend off some water, but since the rain was being blown by the wind into an angle, most of it wound up on me. I did manage to share an umbrella for a few minutes until the worst of it passed. At roughly 7:10PM, the Great Lawn was pretty empty, and since I didn't see a mass exodus from the rain, I assume most people didn't bother coming in the first place. I had just found a nice spot for my chair and took my sandals off - my brand new sandals which were abrading the skin on my toes and making walking rather difficult - when I overheard someone say that an announcement had been made from the stage that the performance had been cancelled. There would be no rain date unless it rained the next day, and then only for Faust. I was stubborn, and not about to waste the trip to Central Park, so I decided to just sit there and eat my fruit. I was just peeling the label off my very last plum when the park officials ordered everybody to clear the lawn. Oh well.

What really makes me mad about this is that there wasn't any rain after the initial deluge and they could have easily gone on with the performance. Even better, all the allergens would have been washed out of the air, which would have been wonderful for the singers, especially Hong who complained in the recent Opera News about being affected by allergies at these concerts - no doubt that is what caused the slight problems she had in La Traviata last summer. Well, I'll probably be able to see Dunleavy in the house, and I suppose now that since Hong's international career is progressing and I will soon have money, I might be able to see her elsewhere. Washington, or even London, maybe.(1)

Well, there was no rain on Wednesday, but it was awfully cloudy (the scientific term being "yucky"), and once I got into the park, oh boy, there was wind! When I told one of my colleagues my travails of the previous evening, he advised me to bring a jacket, but since I read the temperature as 63, I didn't think I needed one. I generally tend to be quite cold resistant. Wrongo. As it happens, the jacket I would have brought probably wouldn't have helped. I think the wind chill was somewhere in the high 40s. I was actually considering ducking out before the performance started, but decided I at least wanted to get a taste of all the voices. Speaking of taste, I very much enjoyed my dinner of seaweed, avocado, and lambsquarters (at least I think they were lambsquarters, if not it was some other edible weed) freshly picked right there in Central Park. Yes, yes, I can just see the faces you're making. It was delicious. Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah! I wound up leaving at intermission, but I still got to hear a pretty big chunk of the opera - the Met forces played the first three acts, that is, to the end of the scene in Marguerite's garden. While I was largely enjoying what I was hearing, in the end, I was just too cold, and frankly, I'm not sure I love the opera quite as much as I used to. And as it happens, after I got home, I fell asleep before the opera would have ended.

The biggest problem of the evening, besides the weather, was the sound. Usually when I go to these concerts I try to sit as far upfront aspossible, if for no other reason than to try to see the performers. But this time I decided I didn't want to take the time to make my way all the way to the "front" of the Great Lawn. I also didn't want to be too close to the loudspeakers for the sake of avoiding hearing loss. I should have made the effort after all. When the opera started, I could only hear the double basses in the overture, and not the cellos or violins. This is the kind of sound quality I expect at performances ofthe New York Grand Opera at Summerstage, which has a vastly inferior sound system. Even worse, I'm pretty sure the wind interfered with the speakers, distorting the sound further. Oh yeah, and people were talking. Loudly. Despite a reminder from the stage beforehand to talk "sotto voce" and only when necessary. Several thousand people "sottovoce" is still a dull roar, however, and several people were at least forte. In a setting like this, I can understand being on a cell phone to give your friends directions, but not the loud dinnertime conversations while people are singing! I suspect with all the trouble I've had in the house this year with noise issues, I've become overly sensitive and less able to tune stuff like this out than I used to be. Equally likely, there would have been less noise closer to the stage.

Maurizio Benini, although a superb conductor of Barbiere (and presumably, other bel canto and/or comic operas), is basically a routinier for everything else I've heard him do - although, to be fair, at least some of his performances may not have been well rehearsed. This may have been a problem here as well since he and some of the singers weren't quite in sync. I suspect he was deliberately conducting very fast in order to get everybody home at a decent hour - the first two acts took about 40 minutes and the Jewel Song ended before 9PM. I alsonoticed a number of cuts - most of the overture, a chunk of Faust's transformation scene (from "O merveille!" to the chord announcing him as a young man), bits of the quartet in the Garden Scene - which of course are there in the house performances.

David Pomeroy started out badly but improved over the course of the night. He initially had a lot of problems with line and phrasing (likely partially Benini's fault), and his French was, well, not up to the standard of an international house. Quite surprising considering he is Canadian (possibly French-Canadian - isn't "Pomeroy" a French name?) and has sung at most of the major theaters in Canada, although I note, not Montreal ). Since this was his "Met debut" (I only consider it a debut when it is a house debut), he may have been suffering from nerves. His is a very light, lyric tenor, which is a nice contrast to my other Met Fausts - Richard Leech, Roberto Alagna, and Ramon Vargas - and intrinsically quite beautiful. He also had decent high notes, a few nice moments of subtlety (namely the aforementioned "O merveille!") and gave a solid if ultimately unmemorable rendition of "Salut, demeure". Whether he should sing this role in a house the size of the Met is another matter, although I'd be interested to hear him as, say, Hylas or Iopas in Les Troyens. Or Lennie in Of Mice and Men, which he sang in Kansas City (although as far as I'm concerned Anthony Dean Griffey owns this role). I think he might be up for Skuratov in From the House of the Dead when the Met does it in 2009-2010 - how many other tenors have that role in their repertory?

Although I was very curious to hear her, I must admit that I came in with feelings of ... oh, all right, hostility toward Katie Van Kooten,which I admit is almost completely unfair. The soprano spent a number of years in Covent Garden's young artist program, culminating in her being given one performance of Magda in La Rondine alternating with Angela Gheorghiu. Now of course, since she was covering Angela, the British press predictably wrote lots of articles portraying her as the sweet, wonderful, normal person who actually deserves stardom versus the evil diva bitch who owes everything to her marriage and to "hype" - rather ironic considering what little you do hear about Angela these days tends to be vicious, not sycophantic. It naturally got worse when she wound up replacing Angela in Paris as Magda. No doubt had Van Kooten covered Karita Mattila or Renee Fleming or some press darling she would have been completely ignored - I certainly don't remember seeing gushy portraits of any of their covers, as good singers as they may be (2). And of course, she's American and blonde, which is something else the music press and a lot of managements like a little too much. I realize that very little of this is actually Van Kooten's fault, although I wouldn't put it past her management. By and large she broke down my barriers. What most impressed me was that even in a setting like this, she made many attempts at musical subtlety. I also liked the warm, dark bottom ofher voice, and she has a good trill. While I don't think her voice is small, I did have trouble hearing her when she was singing at any volume lower than forte. This may have been miking/acoustic issues, but no one else in the cast had this problem. Despite this, I ultimately found Van Kooten much more interesting than Ruth Ann Swenson, who was my Marguerite last October, and I hope to hear her in the house soon - as long as nobody uses her to bash Angela again.

By the way, it's apparently pronounced Van COAT-ten, in the Dutch manner, not Van COOT-ten. Personally, I think she'd be better off by Katherine or Katerina instead of Katie, as it sounds more formal and "professional", but I imagine she's been through this with her management, and they obviously disagree with me.

There were no disappointments with the house "veterans", although Hung Yun (Valentin) and Kate Lindsey (Siebel) really haven't been at the Met long enough to qualify for that title. I was already impressed by Yun's powerful and incisive Valentin, having seen it in the house. It's a pity I had to miss his death scene. Lindsey really made me sit up and take notice when I saw her as Tebaldo in Don Carlo, and her Siebel, the first time I've seen her in a semi-major role, was equally arresting - warm, lush, and musical, with excellent French. I'm glad to see that the Met is switching her into bigger roles next year (Stefano and Cherubino). She should also be luxury casting for the Madrigal Singer in Manon Lescaut. I'd like to see her go the way of Kristine Jepson, the grossly underrated Suzanne Mentzer, or even Susan Graham.

The biggest veteran of them all, of course, is James Morris. I'll have to check my records, but I believe that he is the principal singer I have seen the most often in my Met-going, certainly in the widest variety of roles (trying to rack up every non-Shabbat performance with Roberto or Angela - and when I have more money quite a few other singers - doesn't count). The growly quality of his voice makes him a very nasty devil indeed - even though I prefer a smoother and more Gallic Mephistopheles (e.g. Pape), Morris' authority and power shine through. Several things I remember from his performances in 2003 were still there, particularly the delightful moment when Faust comes in after Mephistopheles is "repulsed" by all those crosses and asks him what's wrong, and he says "Rien!" (Nothing!) like it really is "Oh, nothing at all!" whereas most basses play this as ticked off. It got a laugh, just like it did back in 2003.

(SIGH) I'll see what I can do about getting to see the operas in the other city parks - Faust in Prospect Park on Tuesday is a definite possibility, although I don't know about La Boheme in Cunningham Park because I have no idea where it is! Certain areas of Queens are more trouble than they're worth in terms of length of travel, especially since the opera is not likely to end much before 10:30PM and it's likely to take a while to get from the park to the subway.

Three things before I go. One is that among all the corporate and political droning that preceded the performance, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer gave a speech where he pronounced "Levine" (as in Jimmy) "luh-VEEN". Yes, I know that's the more common pronunciation, but never mind the fact that he's obviously not an opera fan, as a New Yorker, he should know better! I can't remember whether or not I actually voted for this guy. Also, per the program, the Met will behaving not one, but three open houses next season, including one prior to the Opening Night Lucia di Lamermoor. Finally, I think I heard a rumor somewhere that one of the operas for next year's Parks Concerts will be The First Emperor. While I applaud the desire to bring something new to a wider audience - isn't that really as much of a visual pageant as a musical one? Then again, that's true of Turandot, too. And I want to actually see the opera next April - missed it this season - before I judge it.

(1) Still, I suppose this may be my last opportunity to tell my favorite Hong story. Unfortunately I was not actually there when it happened. On December 31, 1999, the Met presented an "End of the Millennium" Gala (never mind that most intelligent, educated people know that the "end of the millennium" was on December 31, 2000), which basically consisted of pretty much every singer who was in a Met production at the time coming out and singing an aria. Well out comes Hong, and as the applause dies down, her young son - I don't know how old but clearly up late on a special night- yells out, loud enough for the entire Met audience to hear, "Hey! That's my MOM! Hey, mom! Mom!"

Future tenor, anyone?

Poor Hong. Her aria just happened to be the ubersexy "Meine Lippen sie kussen so heiss" from Giuditta!

(2) Possible exception to this is when Erin Wall replaced Karita Mattila on an opening night Don Giovanni in Chicago - but it was a special occasion, and the press was able to laud Wall without denigrating Karita. That's the way it should be.