Why Mozart Is Always Welcome at the Met
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

As you may know, 2006 is a Mozart year – the 250th anniversary of his birth. But every year’s a Mozart year, just as it is a Beethoven year, or a Brahms year. In any case, the Metropolitan Opera is having a pretty Mozartean fall: On Friday night, they opened a run of “Cosi fan tutte,” and on November 2 they will open a run of “The Marriage of Figaro.” In January, they’ll start “The Magic Flute” – but we’ll have so much Mozart next year, you may even begin to resent the guy.
(Not really.)
“Cosi fan tutte,” that merciless little masterpiece, involves a sextet of singers: two sopranos, one mezzo, a tenor, and two baritones. Each has a lot of singing to do, in the course of two extended acts, for there is no minor character. And not infrequently these six sing together. The opera is a triumph of craft – of balance and proportion – among other things.
The Met’s current cast has no weak link, although, on Friday night, a couple of the six started weakly. One of them was Barbara Frittoli, the Italian soprano portraying Fiordiligi. She is a lovely singer, prized for her Desdemona, in Verdi’s “Otello.” But at the outset of this “Cosi” she was uncertain and tremulous. Would it just be a lousy night for her? Not at all: She soon became herself, and rendered her arias correctly and touchingly. At her best, she is a model of lyrical singing.
The mezzo portraying Fiordiligi’s sister, Dorabella, started superbly and never let up. That was Magdalena Kozen y a, the Czech star who excels in opera, song, oratorio, and other forms. Talk about a model of singing (of any kind): Ms. Kozen y a’s technique was imperturbable, her sense of the music was unerring, and her beauty of voice was ample. In the mere matter of intonation, she was astonishing: She was in the center of the note all evening long.
And the sisters’ lovers, Ferrando and Guglielmo? Ferrando, the tenor role, was sung by Matthew Polenzani, an American who has become a big deal in the last few seasons. Through much of Act I, he sounded forced, bordering on strident, and he had trouble with pitch. This was a surprise: Mr. Polenzani is usually fresh-voiced and uncomplicated – singing for him is like falling off a log. But, like Ms. Frittoli, he eventually became himself, or more like himself: In the aria “Un’aura amorosa”- one of Mozart’s best, for tenor – he showed some of his sweetness, and control.
Guglielmo was sung by Mariusz Kwiecien, a Polish baritone who is rapidly becoming a star. Here was another clinic of singing: smooth, stylish, sure. The voice has startling volume, for one so lyrical – and this volume comes with no apparent effort. It should be said, too, that Mr. Kwiecien acted almost as engagingly as he sang. He has the operatic package.
Did I mention smooth, stylish, and sure? Sir Thomas Allen was on hand to sing Don Alfonso, a role he has been hitting a lot in recent seasons (e.g., in Salzburg). This is an appropriate role for a baritone in the autumn of his career: The first words out of Don Alfonso’s mouth are, “My gray hair urges my authority.” Later, the maid Despina calls him “an old codger.” Sir Thomas may be a little worn around the edges, vocally, but he is loaded with savvy, and he was a masterly Don Alfonso.
Frankly, I’m not sure I’d mind hearing Sir Thomas – an accomplished Mozartean all around – sing Don Giovanni at this point in his career. Giovanni can be a bad old lech, just as he can be a bad middle-aged lech, and a bad young one.
An utter delight of this “Cosi,” musically and theatrically, was the Despina of Nuccia Focile, another Italian soprano. Her singing was bold, unafraid, and charismatic. It also had a laser-like accuracy. And in her portrayal of the maid, she was rightly saucy and earthy, and she was hilarious. Yet she did not overdo. She simply lit up the stage when she was on it.
In the pit was the Met’s music director, James Levine. Like some of his singers, he did not start out especially well. The overture ought to throw off Cmajor dynamism, and it threw off rather less than desirable. The initial chord was clumsy, the oboe was flat, the orchestra in general was limp. One of Mr. Levine’s specialties is crispness, and Mozart’s overture needed more. When the singers came in, a lethargy persisted, and so did imprecision. The soprano-mezzo duet “Ah, guarda, sorella” was somewhat slow and stiff. The military march did not have its proper snap. Would Mr. Levine commit one of his flaccid, indifferent evenings?
No. Mozart’s ineffable trio “Soave sia il vento” was just about perfect, and as the opera wore on, Mr. Levine demonstrated why he is unsurpassed as a Mozart conductor: He can give you a sense of just-rightness, in tempo, definition, expression – everything. This is a question of musical intuition, and the means to transmit it to large forces.
Providing the continuo at the harpsichord, Kevin Murphy did his usual sensitive and expert job (which includes, blessedly, no dragging). David Heiss was the able cellist.
The Met’s production is Lesley Koenig’s from 1996, and it is a sensible and pleasing one. Michael Yeargan is responsible for the sets and costumes. They are clear, beautiful, and orderly, like Mozart’s score itself. Stage teams like to warp and misrepresent “Cosi fan tutte” in any number of ways – if you’re interested, visit almost any European musical capital. The Met’s “Cosi” is really Mozart’s, and that of his librettist, da Ponte. This sort of opera is welcome in any year.
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Spending the weekend at Carnegie Hall was the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, led by its chief conductor, Alan Gilbert. They played one concert on Saturday night, and another on Sunday afternoon. The latter program consisted of Beethoven, Prokofiev, and the contemporary Swedish composer Anders Hillborg. The soloist was the pianist Lars Vogt (who played Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 in G). The first program offered Scandinavian songs (mainly) and Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.
Soloist for those songs was the great Swedish mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter. She can sing everything, and has sung everything – but it’s always nice to hear her in her home music. She chose songs of Stenhammar, Peterson-Berger, Alfven, and Benny Andersson. Those are all Swedes. She also included two by Sibelius, the immortal Finn. As usual, Ms. von Otter gave us a mezzo carpet of sound, and an ultra-secure technique. But mainly she gave us her interpretive tastefulness, a tastefulness that never flags. You’d think she were British.
Especially satisfying was a Sibelius song, “The Echo Nymph.” This has an otherworldly feel, and Ms. von Otter riveted in it. She can impress on you the importance of a song without overselling it. In fact, an overselling would rob a song of its importance. After “The Echo Nymph” – which came in the middle of the set – it was hard not to applaud. One audience member did so, softly, hoping that others would join in. They did not. Ms. von Otter simply smiled.
At the end of her set, she took a microphone to talk about the one offering by Benny Andersson, co-founder of the pop group ABBA. The song was “At Home,” from a musical about a woman named Kristina, an emigrant to America. Ms. von Otter kept the microphone for the song, rendering it in what you might call high pop fashion – scooping into notes (but tastefully), for example. Then she sang an encore, breaking from her Scandinavian pattern (but keeping with an immigration one). Still with the microphone in hand, she did “My Ship,” from “Lady in the Dark” – music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin.
By the way, when she was discussing the Andersson song, Ms. von Otter explained that, in the 19th century, famine drove millions from Sweden; many of them came “here, to this land of opportunity.” Some Carnegie Hall patrons around me laughed – that phrase “land of opportunity” was comical to them. But I believe Ms. von Otter was serious.
Alan Gilbert is a youngish American conductor about whom many people are very excited. He is a particular favorite of the New York press. Mr. Gilbert was born here, the son of two violinists in the New York Philharmonic. (His mother is still a member.) He is one of the most frequent guest conductors of that same Philharmonic, thought of as a possible successor to music director Lorin Maazel.
He led a decent performance of the Mahler Fifth. It wasn’t special, it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t a success, it wasn’t a failure. It wasn’t memorable, yet it was not a waste. It “suffered from the quality of okayness,” as I sometimes say. Often, Mr. Gilbert seemed to be too present, managing the score from phrase to phrase. But the performance was rather loose, technically, and could have used a bit more of a different kind of management.
As far as sound is concerned, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic played with considerable warmth. Of course, all orchestras tend to sound warm in Carnegie Hall. This might be true of the New Paltz Kazoo Ensemble.
In the Mahler Fifth, however, you often want something other than warmth: a little rawness, a little power, a little excitement. This account was notable for its deficiency of excitement (a dog that didn’t bark). The climaxes were just short of climactic. You could call this performance modest, or measured – but Mahler calls for some abandon, some edge, some exhilaration.
And in the fourth movement – the Adagietto – you should lose a sense of time and space. The music should lift you to another realm. On Saturday night, this did not quite occur. And Mr. Gilbert was a little heavy-handed in this movement. But, again, neither the Adagietto nor anything else in the symphony was disrespectable.
What would they do for an encore? More Mahler is out of the question. Something Swedish? Yes, an intermezzo by Stenhammar, rather Brahmsian, and ripe for the warmth that this orchestra had to provide. It was a beautiful way to end the evening.
“Cosi fan Tutte” will be performed again October 25 & 29, November 1 & 4, and January 25 & 28 (Lincoln Center, 212-362-2000).