February 14 - Metropolitan Opera

i puritani
VINCENZO BELLINI
conductor
Maurizio Benini
Opera in three acts
Libretto by Carlo Pepoli
production
Sandro Sequi
set designer
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
7:30–11:05 pm
Ming Cho Lee
costume designer
Peter J. Hall
lighting designer
Gil Wechsler
revival stage director
Sarah Ina Meyers
The production of I Puritani was
made possible by a generous gift from
Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Crawford
The revival of this production is made possible
by a gift from Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni
general manager
Peter Gelb
music director emeritus
James Levine
principal conductor
Fabio Luisi
2016–17
season
The 59th Metropolitan Opera performance of
i puritani
VINCENZO BELLINI’S
co n duc to r
Maurizio Benini
in order of vocal appearance
s i r b r u n o r o b er t s o n
Eduardo Valdes
r i cc a r d o
(s i r
r i ch a r d f o r t h )
Alexey Markov
elv i r a
Diana Damrau
giorgio
(s i r
g eo r g e wa lto n )
arturo
( lo r d
Luca Pisaroni
a r t h u r ta l b ot )
Javier Camarena
gua lt i er o
( lo r d
wa lto n )
David Crawford
en r i ch e t ta
( q u een
h en r i e t ta )
Virginie Verrez**
Tuesday, February 14, 2017, 7:30–11:05PM
MART Y SOHL /METROPOLITAN OPER A
Javier Camarena
as Arturo and
Diana Damrau as
Elvira in Bellini’s
I Puritani
Chorus Master Donald Palumbo
Musical Preparation Donna Racik, Dan Saunders,
Joel Revzen, and Vlad Iftinca*
Assistant Stage Director Jonathon Loy
Stage Band Conductor Gregory Buchalter
Prompter Donna Racik
Met Titles Sonya Haddad
Italian Coach Hemdi Kfir
Scenery, properties, and electrical props constructed
and painted in Metropolitan Opera Shops
Costumes executed by Metropolitan Opera
Costume Department
Millinery by Gary Brouwer
Wigs and Makeup executed by Metropolitan Opera
Wig and Makeup Department
This performance is made possible in part by public funds
from the New York State Council on the Arts.
* Graduate of the
Lindemann Young Artist
Development Program
** Member of the
Lindemann Young Artist
Development Program
Yamaha is the
Official Piano of the
Metropolitan Opera.
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Before the performance begins, please switch off
cell phones and other electronic devices.
This production uses lightning effects.
Met Titles
To activate, press the red button to the right of the screen in front of
your seat and follow the instructions provided. To turn off the display,
press the red button once again. If you have questions, please ask an
usher at intermission.
PHOTO: KEN HOWARD / MET OPERA
VERDI
RIGOLETTO
APR 19, 22 eve, 27
Michael Mayer’s hit production places the action in a neon-bedecked
Las Vegas in 1960. Joseph Calleja is the womanizing Duke, Olga
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Synopsis
Act I
England, circa 1650. Plymouth, a Puritan stronghold, is threatened by siege from
the Royalist troops. Elvira, daughter of Gualtiero, the fortress’s commander, has
been promised in marriage to Riccardo, but she loves another man—Arturo, a
Stuart partisan. Elvira’s father will not force her to marry against her will, and
Riccardo’s friend Sir Bruno urges Riccardo to devote his life to leading the
parliamentary forces.
Elvira tells her uncle, Giorgio, that she would rather die than marry Riccardo.
Giorgio assures her that he has persuaded her father to let her marry Arturo,
who is on his way to the castle.
People gather for the wedding celebration and Arturo greets his bride. He
learns that King Charles’s widow, Queen Enrichetta, is a prisoner in the castle
and soon to be taken to trial in London. Alone with the queen, Arturo offers to
save her even if it means his death. Elvira returns with the bridal veil and playfully
places it over Enrichetta’s head. When he is alone again with the queen, Arturo
explains that the veil will provide the perfect disguise for her escape. As they
are about to leave, Riccardo stops them, determined to kill his rival. Enrichetta
reveals her identity. At this, Riccardo lets the two get away, knowing it will ruin
Arturo. In front of the wedding crowd, Riccardo tells of Arturo’s escape with
Enrichetta. Elvira, believing herself betrayed, is overcome by madness.
Intermission
(AT APPROXIMATELY 8:50 PM)
Act II
The people are distressed about Elvira’s mental breakdown. Riccardo announces
that Arturo has been condemned to death by Parliament.
Elvira, in her madness, relives her happy past. She sees Arturo everywhere and
dreams of her wedding. After she has left, Giorgio tries to convince Riccardo to
save Arturo. At first indignant, Riccardo is finally moved to help Elvira, and the
two men unite in patriotism: if Arturo returns as a friend, he shall live—if as an
armed enemy, he shall die.
Intermission
(AT APPROXIMATELY 10:05 PM)
Act III
Arturo’s love for Elvira has brought him back to Plymouth, but he is torn between
his affection and his loyalty to the Stuarts. When Elvira appears, he assures her
that she is his only love. Just as soldiers are about to arrest Arturo, a diplomat
arrives with news of the Royalists’ final defeat and a general amnesty for all
offenders. The shock of this restores Elvira’s senses, and all are united in peace
as Elvira and Arturo embrace their new happiness.
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39
In Focus
Vincenzo Bellini
I Puritani
Premiere: Théâtre Italien, Paris, 1835
The gorgeous and vocally challenging I Puritani was the final work from Vincenzo
Bellini, the great Sicilian exponent of the bel canto style of opera. Its depiction
of madness—both in individuals and in communities—is extraordinary: the
opera suggests that the veneer of sanity can slip away at any moment, that
madness can plunge a person into a destructive abyss. I Puritani was written
specifically for the talents of four of the best singers of its day, and the opera’s
success depends almost entirely on the vocal abilities (and artistic sensibilities)
of the performers. From time to time great artists rediscover the dramatic and
musical power of Bellini’s music: Maria Callas, for example, was catapulted to
international stardom by a series of performances in I Puritani in 1949 at Venice’s
La Fenice, days after singing Brünnhilde in Wagner’s Die Walküre.
The Creators
Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835) was a Sicilian composer who possessed an
extraordinary gift for melody and a thorough understanding of the human
voice. His premature death—just as he was achieving international success and
expanding in new musical directions—is one of the most unfortunate in the
history of music. The librettist, Count Carlo Pepoli (1796–1881), was an Italian
political exile living among the seething expatriate circles of Paris. Perhaps
not the most inspired poet, he nevertheless understood the standard stage
techniques of his era and how to make them pay off for audiences. The libretto
was based on a French play, Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers, which had its own rather
arcane source, a novel by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), Old Mortality.
The Setting
The opera is set in the English Civil War of Puritans (“Roundheads”) versus
Royalists (“Cavaliers”). Many English critics have been amused at Bellini’s
rollicking depiction of the austere Roundheads, but of course the opera was
never intended as a history lesson. Its background of civil strife, however, was
a universal idea and very familiar to Italians in Bellini’s time. The bel canto
composers explored with powerful results the relationship of civil war and
individual madness: Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor works with a similar, if
slightly less explicit, format.
40
The Music
Too often, bel canto (literally, “beautiful singing”) is explained as a succession
of vocal gymnastics. On the contrary, operas written in this style center on long
lyric lines of melody, such as in the tenor’s Act I solo, which develops into the
celebrated quartet “A te, o cara.” The soprano’s ravishing Act II aria, “Qui la
voce,” works the same way and depends entirely on the singer’s ability to spin
forth an elegant vocal line. The occasional outbursts of vocal prowess (such as
the soprano’s subsequent “Vien, diletto” and the Act III duet and ensemble
with high notes galore) have an enormous impact if the less showy aspects of
the score have also been given careful attention. And no one can deny Bellini’s
unique mastery of melody, as in the rousing martial duet “Suoni la tromba” in
Act II and the bass’s gorgeous showpiece in Act II, “Cinta di fiori.”
Met History
I Puritani had a single performance in the inaugural 1883–84 season as a
vehicle for the star soprano Marcella Sembrich. It wasn’t revived until 1918,
when it showcased the talents of Maria Barrientos. After seven performances,
I Puritani disappeared again until the current production by Sandro Sequi was
unveiled in 1976, featuring a remarkable cast led by Joan Sutherland, Luciano
Pavarotti, Sherrill Milnes, and James Morris, with Richard Bonynge conducting.
Ten years later Sutherland celebrated her 25th anniversary with the company
in performances as Elvira. Subsequent revivals have starred Edita Gruberova
and Chris Merritt (1991); Ruth Ann Swenson, Stuart Neill, and Thomas Hampson
(1997); Anna Netrebko opposite tenors Gregory Kunde and Eric Cutler (2006);
and Olga Peretyatko, Lawrence Brownlee, and Mariusz Kwiecien (2014).
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41
Program Note
I
n late summer 1833, Vincenzo Bellini traveled to the French capital in hope
of securing a commission from the Paris Opera. Parisians welcomed Bellini
and invited him to the most sought-after parties and salons, especially those
hosted by the vivacious Princess Belgiojoso, an Italian expatriate who had aided
revolutionaries in war-torn Milan and fled to Paris to avoid capture. It was in her
home that Bellini met such illustrious figures as Luigi Cherubini, Victor Hugo,
Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, and George Sand.
In the end, Bellini did not receive a commission from the Paris Opera, but he
was still optimistic and wrote to his uncle, Vincenzo Ferlito:
I am now in Paris. … The director of the Opera asked me to write an opera for
him, and I said I would willingly do so … but we could come to no agreement. The
impresario of the Théâtre Italien made offers to me, which it suited me to accept
because: the payment was better … than I have had in Italy, the company was
magnificent, and, lastly, so that I could stay on in Paris at others’ expense.
The contract with the Théâtre Italien was to produce several of his own operas,
including Il pirata and I Capuleti e I Montecchi. But producing was not the
same as composing, and Bellini languished in a creative vacuum that worried
his closest friends, especially his dear confidante from student days at the
Naples Conservatory, Francesco Florimo. Florimo accused Bellini of being overly
complacent, content to bask in the Parisians’ attention. He was not wrong; Bellini
freely admitted to enjoying himself: “If you reflect for a moment that a young
man in my position in … Paris for the first time, cannot help amusing himself
immensely. … You can’t imagine the opportunities for diversion to be met with
in these places, things it is impossible to give up …” Fortunately, the composer
was soon jolted out of his reverie when the Théâtre Italien finally offered him a
contract for a new opera. The librettist would be Carlo Pepoli, an Italian politician,
journalist, and poet, whom he had met through Princess Belgiojoso.
Together, composer and poet settled on a play by Jacque-François Ancelot and
Joseph Xavier Saintine, Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers (Roundheads and Cavaliers).
The new opera would be called I Puritani, and the story would take place during
the time of Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658), the English parliamentarian, military
leader, and Puritan convert, who sent Charles I to the scaffold at Whitehall
during the English Civil War. In I Puritani, however, Cromwell is merely a point of
reference, and politics a vessel for the dramatic conflict: Elvira, a Puritan, loves
Arturo, a Royalist, who loves her in return; they are to be married. Riccardo, a
Puritan, also loves Elvira.
An important subplot concerns Enrichetta, widow of Charles I, whom Arturo
disguises in Elvira’s wedding veil in order to help her escape punishment. Elvira,
left at the altar, goes mad, but comes to her senses as Arturo returns and
Riccardo steps aside.
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The plot was thin, but Bellini saw in it opportunities to focus on the sensibilities
and voices of his characters. On April 11, 1834, he wrote to his close friend,
Filippo Santocanale, describing his attraction to the story: “A profound interest,
events that arrest the soul and invite it to sigh for the suffering innocents, with
no evil character who causes those misfortunes; destiny is the one creator, and
therefore the emotions are all the stronger because there is no human agent
to turn to in order to make the misfortunates cease. … I have great hopes that,
first, it will inspire me and, second, that it will make a profound impression when
united with my melancholic muse.”
Bellini had at his disposal four of the most brilliant singers of the 1830s:
soprano Giulia Grisi; tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini; baritone Antonio Tamburini;
and bass Luigi Lablache. Grisi had achieved fame by singing Adalgisa in Norma
and also revealed her extraordinary range and vocal agility in the title role of
Rossini’s Semiramide. As a great actress, she was well equipped to express the
mood swings of the vulnerable Elvira. Rubini was known for his high register,
which Bellini exploited in the nearly impossible and notorious high F that Arturo
sings in the Act III finale of I Puritani. The dashingly handsome Tamburini also
had an exceptional two-octave range, and Lablache, the most famous and
cosmopolitan of the “Puritani Quartet,” had a career that spanned the repertoire
from Rossini to Cimarosa, Donizetti to Mercadante and Meyerbeer. Bellini took
every opportunity to show off his all-star cast.
The sonority of I Puritani is lyrical, but offset, as Bellini himself described it,
by “militaristic robustness and something of a Puritan severity.” The militaristic
sound is generated by brass, percussion, an active chorus, and simple and
robust rhythms. The lyrical, more typically associated with Bellini, unfolds in longbreathed melodies, extremes of range, and fioritura (rich vocal ornamentation).
Most effective is Bellini’s manipulation of musical space and vocal effects, good
examples of which include Elvira’s many offstage vocal entrances, and the
remarkable “Suoni la tromba,” a hymn to liberty sung by Giorgio and Riccardo
at the end of Act II. Bellini spells out the military-lyrical dichotomy in the opera’s
first measures with a series of loud tutti chords, marked sforzando, that dissolves
into a beautiful and melancholy horn quartet, which returns periodically
throughout this remarkably consistent and thematically integrated score.
The dramatic and vocal core of the opera is Elvira, whose bouts of madness
evoke Shakespeare’s Ophelia, who lost her mind and “chanted snatches of old
tunes” before her watery death. Bellini recaptures that connection between
music and madness in a series of scenes: Elvira enters in Act II singing “Qui
la voce sua soave mi chiamava . . . e poi spare” (“Here his sweet voice called
me … and then vanished”), while in Act III, she recovers at the sound of Arturo’s
voice, only to retreat once again into darkness when she hears the “baleful
sound” of distant drums. The declaration of Arturo’s death sentence, however,
shocks Elvira to her senses: “Qual mai funerea voce funesta, mi scuote e desta
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43
PHOTO: KRISTIAN SCHULLER / MET OPERA
D V O Ř Á K
RUSALKA
FEB 2, 6, 9, 13 17, 21, 25 mat MAR 2
Kristine Opolais stars as the mythical water nymph Rusalka in
a wondrous new production by Mary Zimmerman. Brandon
Jovanovich, Jamie Barton, Katarina Dalayman, and Eric Owens
complete the all-star cast, and Mark Elder conducts.
Tickets from $27
metopera.org
Program Note
CONTINUED
dal mio martir!” (“A mournful, funereal voice rouses me and wakes me from
my sufferings!”).
I Puritani premiered on January 24, 1835, and was an immediate success.
Bellini was ecstatic and wrote a long letter to Florimo the very next day: “I
cannot find words to describe to you the state of my heart. … The French had
all gone mad; there were such noise and such shouts that they themselves were
astonished at being so carried away.” Bellini gushed in particular about his vocal
quartet, “Lablache sang like a god, Grisi like a little angel, Rubini and Tamburini
the same.” But his happiness would not be long-lived. By September 2, 1835,
he was suffering from severe dysentery, and he died three weeks later. He was 31
years old, and I Puritani was his final opera.
Bellini’s immediate posthumous reception included diverse views expressed
by two Germans: poet Heinrich Heine and composer Richard Wagner. Heine,
who had met Bellini at one of the Parisian salons, found him to be theatrical and,
consequently, shallow. In 1837, he committed those views to posterity in one of
the few extant descriptions of the composer:
He was a tall, slender figure that moved in a graceful, I might say coquettish, way;
always finically dressed; face regular, long, rosy; hair light blond, almost golden,
lightly curled; forehead noble, chin round … a milky face sometimes curdled in a
sweet-sour look of sadness … but one without depth; it glimmered without poetry
in his eyes, it quivered without passion about his lips. The young maestro seemed to
wish to make this shallow, languid sadness visible in his whole appearance. His hair
was dressed in such a romantically wistful fashion; his clothes fitted his frail body so
languorously, and he carried his little Malacca cane in such an idyllic manner that he
always reminded me of the young shepherds in our pastoral plays mining about with
beribboned crooks in pastel jackets and breeches. And his gait was so maidenly, so
elegiac, so ethereal. The creature altogether looked like a sigh in dancing pumps.
Ironically, Wagner, who broadly regarded Italian music as degenerate, made an
exception for Bellini, whom he praised as a master of melody. In 1837, the same
year in which Heine wrote disparagingly about the composer’s physical persona,
Wagner extolled Bellini’s artistry:
All the phases of passion … rendered in so peculiarly clear a light by [Bellini’s] art of
song, are made to rest upon a majestic soil and ground, above which they do not
vaguely flutter about but resolve themselves into a grand and manifest picture.
—Helen M. Greenwald
Helen M. Greenwald is chair of the department of music history at New England
Conservatory and editor of the Oxford Handbook of Opera.
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45
PHOTO: KEN HOWARD / MET OPERA
BIZET
CARMEN
JAN 19, 23, 27, 31 FEB 3, 7, 11mat, 15, 18eve
Sophie Koch and Clémentine Margaine alternate as Bizet’s immortal
heroine. Tenor Marcelo Álvarez is her hapless soldier Don José, and
Maria Agresta is the devoted Micaëla. Asher Fisch, Louis Langrée, and
Derrick Inouye share conducting duties.
Tickets from $25
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The Cast
Maurizio Benini
conductor (faenza , italy)
this season  Il Barbiere di Siviglia and I Puritani at the Met, I Capuleti e i Montecchi in
Zurich, Anna Bolena in Seville, La Traviata at Covent Garden, and Lucia di Lammermoor
in Toulouse.
met appearances  Don Pasquale, Roberto Devereux, Lucia di Lammermoor, Maria Stuarda,
Le Comte Ory, La Cenerentola, Norma, L’Elisir d’Amore (debut, 1998), Rigoletto, La
Traviata, Luisa Miller, Don Pasquale, and Faust.
career highlights He made his conducting debut in Bologna with Rossini’s Il Signor
Bruschino, and his debut at La Scala in 1992 with La Donna del Lago (where he has since led
Don Carlo, Pagliacci, Don Pasquale, Rigoletto, and La Sonnambula). He has also conducted
La Scala di Seta, L’Occasione Fa il Ladro, and Le Siège de Corinthe at Pesaro’s Rossini
Opera Festival; Il Turco in Italia at the Bavarian State Opera; Lucia di Lammermoor at
the Paris Opera; Rossini’s Zelmira at the Edinburgh Festival; Don Carlo in Barcelona; Maria
Stuarda in Barcelona; Norma in Seville; Il Trovatore in Amsterdam; and Rigoletto, Faust,
Nabucco, La Traviata, La Bohème, Attila, and Luisa Miller at Covent Garden.
Diana Damrau
soprano (günzburg , germany)
in Roméo et Juliette, Elvira in I Puritani, and the 50th Anniversary Gala
at the Met; the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro at La Scala and the Bavarian State Opera;
the Four Heroines of Les Contes d’Hoffmann at LA Opera; and the title role of Lucia di
Lammermoor at the Munich Opera Festival.
met appearances  Leïla in Les Pêcheurs de Perles, Amina in La Sonnambula, Gilda in Rigoletto,
Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Adèle in Le Comte Ory, Marie in La Fille du Régiment, Pamina
and the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos (debut, 2005),
Aithra in Die Ägyptische Helena, Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Adina in L’Elisir
d’Amore, Violetta in La Traviata, the title role of Manon, and Lucia.
career highlights  Recent performances include Manon at the Vienna State Opera; Elvira
in Madrid; Violetta at La Scala, the Paris Opera, Covent Garden, and the Orange Festival;
Lucia at Covent Garden, La Scala, Bavarian State Opera, Berlin, Teatro Regio Torino, and
in Paris and Essen; and Leïla and the title role of Iain Bell’s A Harlot’s Progress at Vienna’s
Theater an der Wien.
this season  Juliette
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The Cast
CONTINUED
Javier Camarena
tenor (veracruz , mexico)
this season  Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Arturo in I Puritani, and the 50th
Anniversary Gala at the Met; Count Almaviva at Covent Garden; Arturo in Zurich, the Duke
in Rigoletto in Barcelona; Tonio in La Fille du Regiment in Barcelona and Las Palmas; and
Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola at the Bavarian State Opera.
met appearances  Ernesto in Don Pasquale, Elvino in La Sonnambula, Don Ramiro in La
Cenerentola, and Count Almaviva (debut, 2011).
career highlights  Recent performances include Count Almaviva at the Vienna State Opera,
Bavarian State Opera, San Francisco Opera; Fenton in Falstaff and Count Liebenskof in
Il Viaggio a Reims in Zurich; Arturo in I Puritani in Madrid; Don Ramiro at the Salzburg
Festival; Roberto in Maria Stuarda in Barcelona; Lindoro in L’Italiana in Algeri at the Paris
Opera, Vienna State Opera, and in Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Dresden; and Uberto in La
Donna del Lago, Elvino, and Ramiro at the Paris Opera. He joined the ensemble of the
Zurich Opera in 2007, and his roles there have included Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Belfiore
in La Finta Giardiniera, Nadir in Les Pêcheurs de Perles, the title role of Le Comte Ory, and
Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, among others.
Alexey Markov
baritone (viborg , russia )
in I Puritani at the Met and in Budapest, the title role of Macbeth
in Zurich, and Silvio in Pagliacci, Robert in Iolanta, the title role of Eugene Onegin, Count
di Luna in Il Trovatore, Count Anckarström in Un Ballo in Maschera, Grigory Gryaznoy in
The Tsar’s Bride, Yeletsky in The Queen of Spades, and Iago in Otello at St. Petersburg’s
Mariinsky Theatre.
met productions  Robert, Count Anckarström, Germont in La Traviata, Valentin in Faust,
Count di Luna, Shchelkalov in Boris Godunov, Tomsky in The Queen of Spades, Prince
Andrei in War and Peace (debut, 2007), and Marcello in La Bohème.
career highlights  He has recently sung Valentin at the Salzburg Festival, Tomsky in
Amsterdam, and Escamillo in Carmen, Prince Andrei, Don Carlo in La Forza del Destino,
Germont, Rodrigo in Don Carlo, and Scarpia in Tosca at the Mariinsky Theatre. He has
also sung Count di Luna at the Bavarian State Opera, Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor and
Count Anckarström in Zurich, and the title role of Eugene Onegin in Zürich, Lyon, and
Monte Carlo.
this season  Riccardo
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49
The Cast
CONTINUED
Luca Pisaroni
bass - baritone (ciudad bolívar , venezuela )
in I Puritani at the Met, Leporello in Don Giovanni at the Staatsoper
Berlin and for his debut at La Scala, Méphistophélès in Faust with Houston Grand Opera,
and Rodolfo in La Sonnambula and Méphistophélès at the Vienna State Opera.
met appearances  Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Leporello, Caliban in The
Enchanted Island, Alidoro in La Cenerentola, Publio in La Clemenza di Tito (debut, 2005),
and the title role of Le Nozze di Figaro.
career highlights  Recent performances include Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro at
the Salzburg Festival, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Vienna State Opera, and the title
role of Rossini’s Maometto II with the Canadian Opera Company. He has also sung the
title role of Le Nozze di Figaro at Covent Garden, the Bavarian State Opera, the Vienna
State Opera, Paris Opera, and San Francisco Opera; Count Almaviva at the Paris Opera
and San Francisco Opera; Leporello in Baden-Baden; Guglielmo in Così fan tutte at the
Glyndebourne Festival; Papageno in Die Zauberflöte at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées;
and Henry VIII in Anna Bolena at the Vienna State Opera.
this season  Giorgio
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