Gaetano Donizetti’s first international success, his opera Anna Bolena, pits the doomed second wife of King Henry VIII of England against her regal spouse and her successor to the throne, lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour. Three notable Russian singers filled these key roles in the final two performances of this unjustly neglected work at the Metropolitan Opera.
Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanová played the “wretched woman,” in Giovanna Seymour’s own words, who was torn by her love for Enrico and her loyalty to Anna, masterfully dispatching every florid line with credible uncertainty, making her nearly as sympathetic a character as Anna herself. The plotting Enrico had bass Ildar Abdrazakov as his vocally capable exponent. Against the formidable talents of these two, how did the third Russian cast member fare?
Soprano Anna Netrebko, increasingly popular with the MET audience, acquitted herself beautifully, if not during the offstage trial that condemned her to death by beheading, certainly by fully inhabiting the rôle, being Queen Anne, treacherously exposed to the king’s plot by both complicit and unwitting characters. Her lustrous performance deservedly received roisterous ovations both Wednesday evening, February 1, and at yesterday afternoon’s matinée.
Early performances praised
Miss Netrebko received mostly favourable press for her appearance in the initial run of seven performances, which opened the current opera season last fall. Soprano Angela Meade took over from Ms. Netrebko for the next three performances. Then the work went on hiatus, returning this month for the final two performances of its scheduled run. Critics in newspapers of New York, Washington, D.C., London, and elsewhere commended the soprano with few reservations.
Take for example Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times. In his review of opening night, he wrote that Anna Netrebko is a “stellar soprano” who brandishes “a major voice, with resplendent colorings and built-in expressivity”. Describing at length the punishing final scene—in which “Anna drifts in and out of sanity”—as “the highlight of her performance”, Mr. Tommasini said:
Ms. Netrebko sang an elegantly sad aria [“Al dolce guidami”] with lustrous warmth, aching vulnerability and floating high notes. …
Then, at the end of this “Mad Scene,” Anna, restored to horrific reality, curses the “wicked couple,” the king and his new queen, and stalks off to her execution, insisting implausibly that she is not seeking divine retribution but going to her grave with mercy on her lips. Ms. Netrebko dispatched Donizetti’s cabaletta [“Coppia iniqua”], all fiery coloratura runs and vehement phrases, with a defiance that brought down the house.
Mr. Tommasini’s words back then also rang true regarding the final two performances. His only criticism of Anna Netrebko’s performance had more to do with director David McVicar’s “production, [which] is uninventive and safe”, and to Maestro “Marco Armiliato’s routine conducting”, which failed “to instill some intensity into the music, to keep the cast more on edge, [and] lacked character.” Her tentative start and at times cautious singing may have sprung from these men’s shortcomings.
Stunning moments
To my taste, Anna Bolena has much to enjoy and relish, beginning with the majestic orchestral overture. The Act I quintet with chorus, “Io sentii sulla mia mano”, is both sonically exquisite and dramatically effective. In just four interwoven lines declaimed by each of the five singers, Anna’s plight is fully revealed: Glad to see Riccardo Percy again, Anna fears their former love will yet prove her undoing. Percy is ecstatic to be near her again, to know he was not forgotten. Anna’s brother, Lord Rochefort, urges Percy not to be stupid, that everyone plainly sees he wears his heart on his sleeve. The king whispers to Lord Hervey to shadow the queen and Percy, to catch them at the slightest indiscretion, and Hervey eloquently promises, ‘You can count on me, Boss’. Or something like that. It’s difficult to say which is more impressive, the sheer beauty of this lush sonic wave that engulfs listeners or the amazing dramatic economy Donizetti employed in clearly delineating each character and their respective agenda.
Already mentioned elsewhere is “Giudici… ad Anna!” (Anna before judges!), the rousing sextet and chorus that brings Act I to a highly fraught, electrifying close. Anna laments that tyrannical power has sealed her fate, but she will be absolved and exonerated after death. Enrico sneers that at his slightest suspicion, she is doomed, that whoever shares his throne cannot remain spotless, and that Anna will die a terrible death.
Meanwhile, Giovanna, Percy, Rochefort, joined by court musician Mark Smeton, unitedly predict it’s useless and humanly impossible to evade or mitigate the inevitable, that they, though alive, already feel death in their heart. And the chorus bewails that nothing so deadly has ever befallen the English throne, the innocent murdered by criminal schemes. Not so much plot development as an outpouring of rage and indignation, underscored by a searing sense of impending destruction.
Practically back-to-back duets in Act II find a frantic, guilt-ridden Giovanna first pleading with her queen to admit to the false charges of adultery at least to preserve her life, then passionately interceding with the king to spare Anna and to allow her, Seymour, to go into seclusion. These duets bookend a dramatic trio between Enrico and the about-to-be-tried Anna and Percy. Percy ardently pleads for Anna’s life but unwittingly adds more fuel to the king’s fire, which will soon virtually immolate four condemned victims: Rochefort and Smeton to join them in death. Anna is at first moved by his protestations—learning that his love for her survived his youth and has endured unflagging—then terrified at his revealing that they were actually married, meaning she and the king were never truly married. “Ambo morrete, o perfidi”, snarls Enrico (Both you traitors will die), and we all tremble.
Whining purists
Purists complain that Anna Netrebko lacks Italianate feel for poetic rhythm and flowing verse. They feel she should not portray rôles in the bel canto style, of which Anna Bolena is a chief example. They disdain her technique and the fact that she momentarily drops out of duets and concerted numbers to wind up for interpolated high notes to cap them. They mourn that she isn’t someone else and usually name a host of sopranos from bygone eras.
I’m no purist. So I don’t hear this talented woman the way they do. I hear a deliciously beautiful voice with rich tone singing true trills—plenty of them—and movingly navigating treacherous coloratura phrases with panache, sometimes achingly so. As an actress she is sincere, convincing. She inhabits the rôle. Does she drop out at times? Yes. But I keep in mind that the rôle of Anna Bolena is a marathon for the soprano, and pacing is crucial. She is almost never off the stage, and she is almost always singing when onstage. Does she sacrifice portions of the composer’s notes to add a few of her own? Again, guilty as charged. Yet she does so thrillingly, riveting the audience. Perhaps in a studio recording, which can be done in the course of three days, she will have the stamina to include everything Donizetti wrote and then some, with the luxury of retakes, of course.
Warning: Comparisons Prohibited
Ms. Netrebko is no Maria Callas, nor even an Edita Gruberová. She is Anna Netrebko. Why compare, when comparisons are almost without exception negative and demeaning? With the death of Callas decades ago, La Divina is no longer available to portray the Donizetti tragedienne. Gruberová is very much alive and despite approaching her career’s end, I believe is still performing this daunting rôle. However, unfortunately for the MET audience, she does so in Vienna, Munich, and other places on the other side of the Atlantic. Her latest appearance here was many years ago.
Even my two all-time favourite exponents, Joan Sutherland and Beverly Sills, are no longer with us, though their recordings live on. While the Sills 1972 document is for me the unsurpassed keystone, I only recently ventured a listen to La Stupenda’s 1984 recording, which struck me as odd: Beverly Sills had already retired from the stage by the beginning of my passion for opera, in 1981. So I never had the pleasure to see her perform live, whereas I had seen Joan Sutherland various times and was besotted with her incredible, seemingly superhuman abilities.
In the mid-1980s, sensing Miss Sutherland might be approaching retirement, I traveled to Chicago to see her as Anna Bolena. She had debuted the rôle in a lavish production at Canadian Opera Company, which traveled to San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, and finally the Royal Opera House of London’s Covent Garden. The occasion was thrilling, both because of the performance and the fact that I met the star soprano backstage afterward. She was the first celebrity I ever visited, and she was endlessly gracious.
Yet despite everything, I wasn’t totally blown away by Miss Sutherland’s interpretation. Why? Because I was comparing her live performance with Beverly Sills’ studio recording, and La Stupenda chose to warble elsewhere than where Bubbles had done so. When I eventually listened to the Sutherland recording a few months ago, I was totally blown away. The difference, of course, was pacing. Pacing and retakes, a luxury afforded artists during three- or four-day recording sessions where they can concentrate on portions of the opera instead of giving it a straight run-through. I learned from that experience not to draw comparisons.
New York’s loss at last turned to gain
New York audiences saw Joan Sutherland just once in the rôle, and only then in a concert presentation at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall November 25, 1985. Donal Henahan wrote the following day in The New York Times that the performance “was astonishing on many accounts”, including the fact that the Metropolitan Opera was not interested in giving the work an outing on its grand stage, apparently over an old tiff with the soprano. Her final stop with this wonderful work was the Royal Opera House at London’s Covent Garden in 1988.
In her October 11, 2010, obituary of Joan Sutherland, Manuela Hoelterhoff wrote: “Sutherland had hoped to bring ‘Anna Bolena’ to the Metropolitan Opera. It was not to be. The company’s humorless management team was largely immune to the charm of the bel canto operas and also to her husband, who was part of the package.”
Russians triumph
Back to Netrebko. Does she have faults? Yes, she does. But then even Joan Sutherland had them—different ones, but faults nonetheless. Still, no one can say the Russian soprano is blasé about her craft. She throws herself into every undertaking with palpable, exciting abandon. Instead of bemoaning her defects or deficiencies, I think we do much better celebrating the fact that she did it—she actually did it. Only Netrebko and soprano Angela Meade seem to be singing the rôle of Anna anywhere. I for one am grateful to have seen this wonderful work once again, after waiting for a repeat since 1985.
What about the other two Russian principals? Ekaterina Gubanová was a discovery for me, but I have seen Ildar Abdrazakov many times at the MET. Whereas he always gratifies, he seemed stodgy and underpowered in last Wednesday’s performance. That may be due to the gravelly growly notes that the composer gave him. At other times he has transfixed. Miss Gubanová scintillated, her plush mezzo solidly reaching the heights of any soprano. I’m looking forward to seeing more of her work.
The same goes for American tenor Stephen Costello. He was a standout, possibly the second-most applauded cast member, and his nimble voice had all the sweetness and heft demanded by the rôle of Lord Riccardo Percy. He and Utah mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford in the trouser rôle of Smeton, gave the Russians a run for their money. In the end the Russians prevailed, but the audience’s sustained enthusiastic applause and the victorious whooping and hollering behind the final curtain left everyone the winner.
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