Composed by Vincenzo Bellini in 1835 with librettist Count Pepoli.
This is a review of a performance of I Puritani by the New York Metropolitan Opera at a Saturday matinee on January 6, 2007. This was a special performance because it was broadcast live, in Italian with English subtitles, to movie theaters around the world and recorded in high-definition video. I am Henry C. McFadyen, Jr., CV0, a novice opera fan. I saw the live broadcast at the Tinseltown in Plano, Texas. I saw it next on February 18, 2007 on PBS in HDTV. And I just saw it, on February 16, 2008, on a DVD published by Deutsche Grammophon late in 2007 (catalog number B0010491-09).
This was my first experience with a bel canto opera and my introduction to Anna Netrebko, the super-star lead soprano in this production. I was excited about efforts by the Met to make live opera more available to those of us who don't live on Manhattan and the expectation that we would soon have this production on HDVD to enjoy at home. Alas, these hopes about the Met have been sadly disappointed. Still, with all its defects in presentation, I was thrilled by this Netrebko I Puritani. I publish this review hoping that I can encourage the Met to do better by those of us in the hinterlands who would like to be patrons. If the Met will make this show available in HDVD, then I will cheerfully forgive them for all their Netrebko I Puritani peccadilloes.
Elvira: daughter of Lord Walton, a Puritan, sung by soprano Anna Netrebko
Arturo: a royalist officer, or Cavalier, sung by tenor Eric Cutler
Riccardo: a Puritan officer who loves Elvira, sung by baritone Franco Vassallo
Lord Walton: Elvira's father, who has promised her to Riccardo, sung by bass Valerain Ruminski
Giorgio: Walton's brother and Elvira's uncle, sung by bass John Relyea
Bruno: a Puritan officer and friend of Riccardo, sung by tenor Eduardo Valdes
Enrichetta: the widow of the recently-beheaded king, Charles I, sung by soprano Maria Zifchak
Chorus under Raymond Hughes
Conductor: Patrick Summers
Set: Ming Cho Lee.
Costumes: Peter J. Hall
The plot is Romeo and Juliet, but with a happy ending. The setting is about 1650 in England. The Puritans, followers of Oliver Cromwell, are pursuing the English Revolution with Parliament pitted against the royal family. Elvira is the daughter of Lord Walton, a Puritan. She is supposed to marry Riccardo, a Puritan colonel. But you guessed it--she's in love with Arturo, a Cavalier and supporter of the royal family. (I will use the Italian names as sung in the opera.)
The Puritans and Royalists are playing for keeps, and King Charles I has just had his head cut off. Elvira's love for Arturo is not politically correct, and her father expects Elvira to accept Riccardo as husband. But Uncle Giorgio pleads for Elvira's happiness, and Lord Walton relents: Elvira can marry Arturo!
Arturo crosses enemy lines for the wedding at the Puritan fortress. Well, it seems security at the fortress is a bit lax--Enrichetta, the imprisoned widow of King Charles and reigning Queen, is wandering around the grounds and mingling with the crowd when Elvira greets her Arturo. Elvira retires to dress for the wedding. Arturo discovers the presence of the Queen and realizes that she is in moral danger. What a conflict of interest for poor Arturo. Should he save his girl or save the State!
Arturo's duty is clear: he must help the Queen escape, even at cost of losing Elvira. As Arturo and the Queen are sneaking out of the fort, Riccardo suddenly appears. Now he's got the conflict. Does Riccardo save the Revolution or make another try at the girl? He goes for the girl and allows the Queen and Arturo to slip away (with a gesture of good riddance).
Soon Elvira arrives for the wedding and finds the place in chaos--it seems her groom has used her wedding as a pretext to break the Queen out of jail and maybe destroy the Revolution and her family! As Act I closes, we see that Elvira has gone mad, and she will stay that way for most of the rest of the opera.
Act II consists of two famous scenes. The first is Elvira's glorious and pathetic mad scene. After that Uncle Giorgio and spurned suitor Riccardo join forces in a rousing patriotic war duet `` Suoni la tromba'' (Sound the Trumpet).
In Shakespeare, this scenario would produce in Act III a cord of corpses. But in this bel canto opera, nobody is going to die. Arturo, although marked for death as a traitor, comes back to prove his love for Elvira. They meet and Elvira regains her sanity. Arturo is arrested and is headed for the chopping block.
Now it's time for Riccardo to show his gallantly. Prodded by Elvira's uncle, Riccardo acknowledges his complicity in the Queen's escape and his guilt in contributing to Elvira's predicament. He undertakes to save his rival in order to protect Elvira's from further madness. Still, his efforts fail and as my telling of the story concludes, Arturo is being lead away by the guards. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, so I'll not tell you what happens to straighten all this out. Still I promise that everybody winds up happy except possibly Riccardo. (He does recover his honor, and I'm pretty sure he will find another lady.)
Logically, this plot has more holes than the last socks I threw out. Artistically, the plot is polished driftwood. With the help of the excellent subtitles provided by the Met, I was able to follow easily everything that was happening.
I Puritani is an opera in the bel canto (``beautiful song'') style. One would think that all operas would by definition be about beautiful song. But operas can have many elements in addition to the singing including the orchestral score, a plot, dramatic acting, scenery, costumes, lighting, dancing, and even a political agenda.
I Puritani has all these elements to some decree, and all are nicely done. But everything is subservient to one goal: to cram in as many beautiful songs as possible. Somebody is singing all the time. There is no spoken word or harpsichord filler to give the singers a break. The composer writes the songs at the limit of what what the human voice can do--while always projecting an aura of utmost decorum, propriety, and elevation of taste. You suspect right away where the name of this style of show comes from when you hear Elvira, the maiden who is about to be jilted, invite you to her wedding party to enjoy the party, the dancing, and ``bel canto.'' [Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I bet they were not calling this ``bel canto'' in 1835. ]
I don't think Bellini and Pepoli were much interested in the complicated history of the time of the English Revolution. Sure, the civil war provides a framework for the drama of characters caught between love and duty. But I think the composer used the name I Puritani as a metaphor for the dream world he creates: a world elevated by beautiful song to a nirvana of purity, goodness, and beauty. This is a world with no poverty, wealth, ugliness, hate, violence, death, greed, sex, or even humor or need for humor. Yes, there's a revolution and war going on, but not in our fortress. Here everybody is noble, righteous, and brave.
The only weakness shown by anyone is Riccardo's betrayal of his duty out of longing for the girl he cannot have. In this elysian world of pure goodness, such a small fault has catastrophic consequences for fragile Elvira. But even Riccardo will in time nobly redeem himself. In I Puritani everybody and everything is pure or will be purified--from this world no one goes to Hell and there is no need for Heaven. It's a blithe way to spend three hours.
Elvira is the only significant female role in this opera, and she is on the stage most of the time. Her role is so demanding that the opera is rarely produced for lack of ladies who can sing it. It takes four men to counter-balance Elvira's presence: her father, her uncle, and her two suitors. But these roles have a lot of substance and together provide a satisfying counterweight to the single refulgent presence of Elvira.
The Met revived I Puritani for Anna Netrebko, a Russian soprano who, they say, is the first woman to appear in recent years who can sign Elvira. She is stupendous because, in addition to being able to sing the part, she actually can look (at age 35) like a young bride. And surely it's not fair, but still must be said, that she is also movie-star beautiful. Finally, she is an athlete. I had a hunch. Yes indeed, her official web-site states that one of her early successes was in gymnastics! This you can see in her stage movements. I count at least 5 actions by her on the stage that, I suspect, would likely not have been attempted by many (or any) of the past Elviras and will not be attempted by those of the future.
Netrebko is frequently put these days into the same sentence with past luminaries like Callas, Sutherland, and Sills. Only experts could discuss how Netrebko's singing and acting compares to these fabled stars. But I suspect that the Netrebko package, if it ever comes out in HDVD format, will set the bar for the future for all but the most erudite fans.
According to Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times, both Relyea (uncle Giorgio) and Cutler (swain Arturo) and were sick when the Met premiered late in December, 2006. But I think all the men were in good form for the HDTV shoot. And there's plenty of great singing opportunities for them. Giorgio was appropriately virile and avuncular. Arturo seemed quite romantic to me, although as a man, I'm a poor judge of this.
Vassallo as Riccardo was criticized by Tommasini as dull, but I saw it differently on January 6. Psychologically and morally, Riccardo is the most difficult role in this opera. (Elvira just goes crazy; Riccardo has to earn redemption.) I'd be dull too if my gal was going to marry my arch-enemy. Later Vassallo gets to show his mettle in the famous patriot duet with Giorgio. (Hmm ...a purification ritual! If you get dumped by your girl you can always join the Army.)
The chorus gets quite a bit to do. In a perfect world, there must always be a song in the air and the stars need at least some breathing room. This was provided by the chorus in pleasing proportion.
Funny, I don't remember much about the orchestra score except that there's a lot of work for the French horns. I think this is a high compliment to the folks in the pit. The bel canto orchestra is small and not a force of nature as in later operas of the Wagner era. When the orchestra is bad, this will be noted for sure. When the orchestra is unnoticed, it's a smashing success.
According to several reviews I saw, the sets, the costumes, and the lighting used by the Met were taken out of moth balls from decades ago. Some view this as dated, but I loved it all. I don't want to see I Puritani set on a spaceship.
My Tinseltown introduction to I Puritani is worth relating in some detail. The mere idea is disorienting: live opera at the same venue where you just saw (or could have seen) at mid-night The Texas Chain Saw Torture Chamber. First you drive out on the same Interstate highway past all the fast-food joints and humongous category-killing retail stores. You enter the same vast lifeless lot with its cracked asphalt parking surfaces and paper cups blowing about. Then you must approach and enter the ugliest building ever built outside the Gulag--a giant concrete-slab box pimped out with plywood trim painted in gritty, lurid pastels. Inside, the gloomy, cavernous lobby is filled with posters of air-brushed fantasy women representing the seven deadly perversions. And then there is the stench of popcorn oil and the sensation of your shoes meeting something sticky on the floor. It's winter, but there are teenage girls loitering with their navels exposed.
Here you are going to the Met! Look carefully and you can pick out your fellow opera lovers--most of them have osteoporosis, and one of them with a walker is creeping across the floor like a snail. And, oh yes, there's a gent with jacket and tie. Slowly the cattle find their way through the chute that leads into a narrow room with stadium seating. You look up and there are scores, even hundreds, of pale, thin figures waiting motionlessly for the show to begin. The Met has found something exceeding rare in our nation: fervent pent-up demand from folks loaded with money. The Met has found it and will soon crush it.
A speaker appears and greets everyone, but few can understand her because the local mike doesn't work right and most of the audience is hard-of-hearing. The show begins. Now live opera is exciting if for no other reason than suspense whether the singers will remember their lines and not crack their voices. This Tinseltown live performance is even more exciting, because when the picture goes black or the sound turns to static for 10 minutes, you have missed 10 minutes of the show for good!
But most of the time, both an image and sound are present. The big screen is full of a picture, but it is not a high-definition picture by any definition. The images are grainy and there is some kind of big screen artifact vaguely apparent from time to time. The resolution is soft. The colors are dull and washed out from lack of sufficient light coming from the camera. Now I am not an investigative reporter, but I have seen high-definition television, and I know what I'm seeing is something else. (I still don't know exactly what I was seeing. But I read reports in the press that the picture used at this Met show came from the same projection system used by the theater to advertise the popcorn and urge the customers to use the waste cans. I don't know if this horrible report is true, but it does seem consistent with what I saw.)
In contrast to the gloomy picture, the sound is bold and enveloping. The quality would not be confused with what you hear at home with high-end audio equipment; but it is pretty good, especially when compared to the fuzziness on the screen.
In spite of the smelly theater, the temporary service interruptions, and the weak picture, there does remain a nice residue of pleasure from this experience. You are seeing a remarkably beautiful young woman and other fine singers performing live in New York. And even if the quality is disappointing, the sheer size of the picture is engaging. You get an idea how glorious the thing you are missing probably is to those lucky enough to be there.
Was this worth $18? Well, if you've been on a desert island eating coconuts for 20 years, the first can of cat food that washes up on the shore will probably taste pretty good. A few weeks later, I paid another $18 to see the Met production of Eugene Onegin at Tinseltown. But I don't plan to dine on opera there again. And the few anecdotes I hear lately suggest that most folks who want an opera experience are looking for their fix elsewhere.
[Update on April 16, 2008: My comments above on the Met live opera videos were based on theater visits in January 2007. The Met was apparently more successful with their 2006-2007 live videos (6 operas) than I thought they would be. They came back to the market 2007-2008 with an expanded series of 8 operas. In 2008, The San Francisco Opera also got into the act by showing 6 operas in movie theaters.
On April 6, 2008, I tried the Met again when I saw their live video presentation of La Bohème in one of the nicest and newest movie houses in Dallas, Texas.
The surround sound was fine for a public theater. The picture was better than what I had seen the year before. The resolution of the picture was similar to a DVD played on an HD DVD or Blu-ray player. But the La Bohème set was dark. The theater projector did not have enough luminance to put a satisfactorily bright image on the screen. The result was a picture that often looked dim and even grimy. Still, the audience for the Met La Bohème show didn't seem to mind the dark picture. They seemed to feel that they were getting their money's worth.
On April 14, 2008 I visited a local Rave theater to see the San Francisco Opera Don Giovanni shot last year before a live audience. I felt a bit like a movie mogul, because I was the only person in the audience.
The surround sound was working and the fidelity was good. But I get a better sound field experience, I think, in my home theater with my Denon AVR and KEF speakers.
Now to the SFO picture as compared to the Met live display. First I'll say that the set for Don Giovanni was even darker that the set used by the Met for the La Bohème. This was dramatic, but doubtless extremely challenging for the camera folks. The SFO show included an extra about their alleged state-of-the-art set-up to record the shows. It was pretty impressive, but I think it still a work in progress.
As to resolution, I would say the SFO is somewhat better as the Met, but still disappointing to me. The SFO shots of the orchestra were shockingly fuzzy. The full stage shots were soft. In the midrange, I think they had depth of focus issues. But the SFO technology for making close-ups is excellent, and the many close-ups provided were quite beautiful with rich colors and a painterly-like aura (if not of full high-def quality). I usually don't pay much attention to black levels. But in this production there are a lot of opportunities to do close-ups against a completely black background, and these shots were gorgeous.
Thank goodness this was not a ballet, because the SFO technology is crippled with horrible motion artifacts. Even normal movements seem to product noticeable jerkiness or smearing of the picture.
Finally, the SFO picture had better luminance than the Met, but it would not compare well to the Opus Arte HD DVD disc of, for example, Il trovatore when viewed on my Sony 52XBR4 LCD display. I guess I've become prejudiced against projectors by seeing too many LCD and plasma displays.
Now, I had never seen Don Giovanni before, and I soon got over my quibbles about technicalities. The SFO show was stupendous and funny. Mariusz Kwiecien was a fabulous Don Juan. I would really like to have this in Blu-ray to see again at home.
My conclusion: both the Met and the SFO have found a way to present operas in theaters seating 200-300 persons with a quality similar to or somewhat better than that of a DVD upscaled on an HDVD player. This is a significant accomplishment if it is perfected and might attract enough of a regular audience to be profitable. Good luck to them on this.
But I wonder if a single-lamp projector will ever provide the brilliance and fine resolution that is available now on smaller screens with internal luminance. I kept thinking: what would it cost to make an LCD panel 50' wide by 28' tall?
And finally, it seems such a pity. The Met and the SFO probably have made true high-definition records of 20 operas in recent months. But they continue to publish them for the after-market only in the now-obsolete DVD format! Let's just hope they will start releasing their high-definition titles in Blu-ray format now that the format war is over.]
Still, I was elated to see I Puritani at the movies because I guessed correctly that the Met would have a high-definition record of the show available to posterity. Maybe one day I would be able to see this done right. And sure enough, it was shown a few weeks later on Channel 13, the Dallas PBS station. By talking to my spy at the station, I got good intelligence on when they would air it. I saw the record, in 1080i I believe, at the appointed time. This was, I feel, one of the best things I ever saw on television (along with the Opus Arte high-definition programs that PBS was running about the same time). The pictures were radiantly clear, vivid, rich, and free of artifacts. The sound was low, but I was able to turn it up to match the picture experience. I know the Met has a high-definition master record of the Netrebko I Puritani because I saw it with my own eyes.
(Alas, I doubt that many other people saw this grand television event. It was hardly publicized. A few weeks later, I plotted to see the PBS showing of the Met's Eugene Onegin that was also shown at Tinseltown. There was a slight technical problem with the Onegin on PBS. An intermission followed Act 1. After the intermission, PBS showed Act I again, and Act II never aired. I called about 6 numbers at the station (it was a weekend) and frantically gave warning to all computers connected to their elaborate telephone menu. On Monday, an engineer from the station called to apologize for the blooper. Someone had programmed the same file on the hard drive to play twice. The engineer offered to let me come to the station and see the show. And then he confided in me: I was the only person to report that they had dropped half the opera.)
Thus I am able to report that at least one person was able to see the Netrebko I Puritani at least once as the Federal Communications Commission wants us to see it. But after it went dark on PBS, no consumer has seen it in high-definition since.
After the disappointing experience at the movies and the exhilarating experience of seeing the Netrebko I Puritani in real high-definition television on PBS, I eagerly awaited getting this from the Met on HDVD. And I'm still waiting, because the Met decided to publish their Netrebko I Puritani in old-fashion DVD format!
Here are my observations about this DVD:
We CVs believe the eye deserves to be ravished the same as the ear. The Met I Puritani with Anna Netrebko could do this in HDVD. Don't buy the Met's DVD cat food unless you have an acquired taste. I think you deserve better. Write or email the Met and ask for the show in HD DVD or Blu-ray format. And ask them to show the opera without intermissions or at least without intermission interviews. Let us sink into Bellini's world and not come out until we must.
February 17, 2008