BWW Reviews: Very Little Night Music from the Met's DER ROSENKAVALIER

On Broadway, when a revival loses two out of three of its stars, the production might very well be put off until another season or, at worst, the producers might pack it in. In the opera world, companies don't have that luxury, particularly at a showplace like the Metropolitan Opera. Thus, we received Richard Strauss's DER ROSENKAVALIER, which made its season debut at the Met on Friday night, offering replacements in the two key roles of Sophie and Octavian, with variable results.

A major success

Soprano Erin Morley, the evening's Sophie, had her biggest assignment to date from the company and she can view it as a major success. Her acting was assured, her top notes were free and her voice was big enough to fill the house. A graduate of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Morley was charming and moving last year in LES DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES. In the Met's concert in Central Park last summer, she also proved to be a delightful and formidable performer, delivering a wonderful "presentation of the rose" scene with mezzo Isabel Leonard. She brought all those qualities to this ROSENKAVALIER and she should have a long career at the house.

A distressing failure

The Octavian, mezzo Alice Coote, was another story. She was so good in last spring's GIULIO CESARE and, earlier this season, as one of the central characters in Nico Muhly's TWO BOYS, that I'm sorry to report that this was almost a complete failure. A total lack of appeal, in either her acting or singing, doomed the production. She wasn't even close to being the Rosenkavalier of the opera's title, who neither the Marschallin nor Sophie related to very well.

Somehow Morley was able to get past it and delivered a sparkling performance, but Viennese soprano Martina Serafin, who one would had thought had the right credentials, didn't click as the Marschallin, at least in the opening act. She never commanded the stage, which would seem to be a given for this role, though she was much better in Act III than in the opera's first scene. Maybe when other Octavians take over in the weeks ahead, she can deliver the goods, but opposite Coote she was playing to a vacuum.

As Baron Ochs, British bass Peter Rose gave a lively performance of the buffo sort--perhaps more coarse than necessary--but he held some long, distressing low notes. The other performers filled their roles nicely: Hans-Joachim Ketelsen as Faninal, Eric Cutler as the Italian Singer, Jane Henschel as Annina and Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, in an entertaining Met debut as Valzacchi.

An oldie but goodie

The performance was conducted by Edward Gardner from London's English National Opera, and the company's classic production that dates back to 1969, by director Nathanial Merrill, scenic/costume designer Robert O'Hearn and lighting designer Gil Wechsler, was the real star. Amazingly, it still looks good after so many years--thanks, no doubt to some nip-and-tuck from the Met's amazing design department --and the audience applauded appreciatively for the glamour of old Vienna in Acts I and II. (I thought Act III was dull, though.)

Gardner and the Met orchestra made some beautiful music--those soaring Strauss lines often sounded glorious indeed. On other occasions, though, the music just sounded incessantly drawn out, particularly in the last act. This did the singers--and the audience--no favors.

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Photo: Soprano Erin Morley as Sophie in the Met's DER ROSENKAVALIER

Photo credit: Cory Weaver/Metropolitan Opera

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