Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece has returned to the Met with Sonya Yoncheva in the title role. American tenor Michael Spyres sang the Roman proconsul Pollione. Adalgisa was performed by Ekaterina Gubanova. The entire cast is below. The show was broadcast last night on the SiriusXm network, so this is just a recount of the singing independent of the mise-en-scène.
Norma depends on glorious singing to make its full effect. As a complete work of art it’s inferior to the other great bel canto tragic opera – Lucia di Lammermoor which has been performed 620 times by the Met compared to just 171 shows for the Bellini opera. If you don’t have a glorious cast, keep Norma in the library. It’s extraordinary melodies deserve only the finest singing.
Not only were the Met’s current singers not glorious, they weren’t even very good. Yoncheva has the wrong instrument for the Druid priestess. Her sound lacks the Italianate bite and edge needed as well as the soaring legato. To add to this lack was that she wasn’t even at her best. ‘Casta diva’ received tepid applause and its cabaletta none at all. The runs were sloppy and her voice wobbled when she went above the staff. She should retire the role.
Why the Met thought Russian mezzo Ekaterina Gubanova was up to the rigors of Adalgisa is mysterious. Her sound was wooly and hard to distinguish from that of Yoncheva. The glorious duets between the two were dully sloughed through. Neither is comfortable with fioratura.
Michael Spyres has been lighting up the opera stages of Europe for close to a decade. His eventual Met appearance was anticipated with enthusiasm. Alas, after three roles he has disappointed his audience in all three. Last evening his voice was strained, colorless, and produced with effort. If you had heard him away from the Met, you would think a different singer had appropriated his name. He’s not on the Met roster for next season and I would be surprised if he ever returns.
Speaking of next season at the Met, it appears to me to be the blandest in memory. But that’s just an opinion. Others may find excitement in what seems like musical pablum to me. The audience will decide.
Back to Norma. When the finest work of a performance of Bellini’s collection of long long long melodies emanates from the conductor – Maurizio Benini – you’ve got the measure of the show. The company is in a ditch at present. There aren’t enough great singers to fill its calendar so it makes do with performances at a provincial level, not at the height expected from the world’s most renowned opera company. You can miss this run of Norma through the rest of March.
Metropolitan Opera House
March 8, 2023
NORMA
Vincenzo Bellini
Norma……………….Sonya Yoncheva
Pollione…………….Michael Spyres
Adalgisa…………….Ekaterina Gubanova
Oroveso……………..Christian Van Horn
Clotilde…………….Brittany Olivia Logan
Flavio………………Yongzhao Yu
Child……………….Adam Berman
Child……………….David Berman
Conductor……………Maurizio Benini
Production…………..David McVicar
Set Designer…………Robert Jones
Costume Designer……..Moritz Junge
Lighting Designer……Paule Constable
Movement Director……..Leah Hausman
Revival Stage Director…Eric Sean Fogel
I agree with your review, except for the fact that all of Spyres’ Met performances were unsuccessful. Idomeneo was a real triumph last fall, a brilliant noble performance, terrific coloratura, agility, mesmerising cantilena, incredible sense of style and the most complex cadenzas the Met has ever heard. I’ve listened to Spyres’ Idomeneo twice in person in Baden and Aix nd he was phenomenal. No one today can sing it better. And given that this role is written very low, almost in baritonal tessitura, he performed it with incredible authenticity and genuine timbral beauty. The Opening night of this Norma run was much better than the performance on March 8, Spyres sang the high C and was more even and smooth though very rough and fussy. But the huge hall of the Met clearly forces him to push, makes his sound dry, uneven, faded and the terrible conducting only made the situation worse, Benini was literally at war with the singers, imposing inadequate tempos. I am glad that Spyres will not return next season at the Met. Next year the Met will gather all second-rate singers and he should not torture his voice in such company.
According to Ester Mazzoleni, a much-lauded Norma of the 1910s, the decline in the quality of performances of Bellini’s masterwork began in the 1970s. “I simply cannot understand what is happening nowadays,” Mazzoleni told Opera News in 1977. “They all sing Norma–the coloraturas like Deutekom, Sutherland, and Sills, the lyrics like Scotto and Cioni, the spintos like Caballe, whom I admire in certain roles very much. But how can they do justice to this terrifying score? It is a travesty of what Bellini wrote, and the audience takes a lot of punishment.”