Anna Netrebko packs house — and costume — in Met’s new production of Anna Bolena

Girlish figure may be gone, but the Russian soprano cuts an otherwise convincing image as the tragic wife of Henry VIII in Donizetti's opera

By David Rubin
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Rubin.html

As compelling musically as portions of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena are, it is a far cry from his Lucia di Lammermoor. Audiences are not dumb. Thus Lucia is on the boards in every major opera house all the time, while Anna awaits a Callas or a Sills (or in this case Anna Netrebko) to bring her to life.

So it is not a shock that the most memorable part of this new production that opened the Met's 2011-2012 season is the costuming. Indeed, David McVicar, who is in charge of the production, made his wisest choice when he engaged Jenny Tiramani to design the costumes.

Tiramani is an acknowledged expert in 16th and 17th century English dress. She researched the clothes being worn at King Henry VIII’s court in part from Holbein portraits.

As Tiramani told interviewer Deborah Voigt during the intermission, she wanted the costumes to be as accurate as possible. Anna, Henry, and Anna’s rival Jane Seymour appeared in multi-layered clothing that starts with linen undergarments. The outer garments — doublets, sleeve jerkins, gowns — are as close to real as Tiramani could create. As tenor Stephen Costello implied (he plays Richard Percy, Anna’s suitor before her marriage to Henry), once you are in one of these costumes you are in it! Forget a bathroom break.

The Met’s HD telecasts are shot so tightly that the movie theater audience could see the careful detail lavished on these costumes, plus the many jewels Henry, Anna and Jane wore — surely a window-full at Bulgari.

Indeed the costumes were the production. There was little else to look at. For backdrops McVicar offered stone, arches, and more stone. We were in Castle Anywhere, without a warming fire in sight. Pieces of this castle rearranged themselves for different scenes, but it was all so murky that after a while one simply focused on the costumes and the voices.

McVicar didn’t bother much with direction or blocking, either. The characters were left to their own devices. The chorus of courtiers stood around in stock conspiratorial mode, whispering or looking pained as the plot rolled to the inevitable beheading. Henry was bug-eyed with feigned outrage most of the time. Anna was bewildered, angry, or loony, as the plot demanded. It’s hard to imagine that anyone on stage or in the audience thought this plot offered anything other than a chance for a good sing.

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera says this was Donizetti’s first big hit, the opera "that gave him his initial exposure to Paris and London." It premiered in 1830 in Milan, and he was fortunate to have Giuditta Pasta as Anna and Giovanni Rubini as Percy, two legends who make one long for a time machine.

The opera’s strengths are a mad scene for Anna that concludes the piece, and a variety of confrontations between the characters that ratchet up the tension: Anna and Percy reunited with Percy still ardent in his love; Jane admitting to Anna that she is Henry’s new lover; Henry breaking into Anna’s bed chamber to confront her with Percy and her page, Mark Smeaton. All these are effectively written. But none has the melodic allure of the Sextet from Lucia or its celebrated mad scene.

Further, if one knows the scene from Verdi’s Don Carlo in which Carlo, also a crazed lover like Percy, approaches another queen (Elizabeth de Valois) to plead his lost cause, the weaknesses of Donizetti’s writing become all too clear. Verdi’s scene is riveting, searing and truly pathetic. Donizetti’s is tepid.

Moreover, much of this music is simply inappropriate to the story. The overture could be from a Rossini comedy (Donizetti’s debt to Rossini is all over this score). Donizetti uses flutes in his orchestration at the most inopportune times. When the situation demands a black or menacing sound, we get flutes.

So why revive this? For Netrebko, of course. She is a Gelb Golden Girl (Peter Gelb being the boss of the Met) and, presumably, a box office draw, even in this. She sang very well, handling the coloratura demands with ease. Her voice has both weight and agility, and the sound is a very attractive one. The mad scene was a triumph. Physically, however, the girlish figure is gone. She has become Mamma Lucia overnight.

Perhaps because this HD telecast was the first beamed into Russia, two of the other lead singers were also Russian, surely strange casting for an Italian opera. The stronger of the two was mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova, as Jane. She matched Netrebko in intensity during their Act II confrontation over Henry. Her voice is accurate and attractive, although the carrying power is impossible to judge in the HD relay. Bass Ildar Abdrazakov, as King Henry, seemed a bit underpowered compared to the ladies, with a cloudy lower register.

Mezzo Tamara Mumford was outstanding in her two arias as the foolish page, Smeaton. This is a trouser-role for a Cherubino-like character who is hopelessly in love with Anna. But unlike Cherubino, Smeaton does some real harm when he lies about a supposed affair he had with the Queen, helping to send her to the block. McVicar did a disservice to Mumford by covering her in blood and stripping her to a tunic with bare legs after she has been tortured, forcing her to sing in an ensemble in this condition.

Some of the most exciting singing came from tenor Stephen Costello, as Percy. His voice has a Juan Diego Florez-like sound, except it’s heavier and not as agile. But it’s an attractive sound, occasionally thrilling. He is a decent actor, believable as the foolish Percy lured into a trap by Henry. He has Nemorino in Vienna and Alfredo in London on his schedule in the next few months, so his time is now. The Met should make good use of him in Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti and some Verdi roles.

Conductor Marco Armiliato took a critical beating for his conducting on opening night, but he moved matters along at this matinee and got out of the singers’ way.

Two points of note about this HD presentation. Weather conditions, we were told, led to a blank screen on three occasions — once before the music started and twice in Act 1. Each lasted for only a few minutes, but broke the mood.

These productions are now being shot in such relentless close-up that my companion and I simultaneously exclaimed during the mad scene that we could see Netrebko’s molars. The camera was down her throat. Never once did the director pull back so that the audience in the movie theater could get a sense of the entire stage picture. Despite what Peter Gelb might think, none of the singers can take this sort of microscopic inspection.

Details Box:
What: Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, Simulcast Live in HD
When: October 15, 2011
Who: Metropolitan Opera
Time: About 4 hours
Where: Metropolitan Opera House, New York
Encore performance: November 2, 2011 6:30 pm
Next simulcast: Mozart’s Don Giovanni, October 29, 2011, 12:55 pm