Met Opera: Sondra Radvanovsky Sings in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux

On Saturday afternoon the soprano Sondra Radvanovsky sang the part of Elisabetta in Roberto Devereux to a sold out audience at the Met Opera.  This was the third "Tudor Queen" role she had sung this season, thus replicating Beverly Sills's accomplishment at the City Opera in the 1970's.  I had already heard Radvanovsky sing the title role in Anna Bolena in January and had been suitably impressed.  As for the opera itself, the handsome David McVicar production that premiered earlier this season marked the the work's first staging at the Met.

Donizetti's tragic opera, with a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, was written at a time of intense personal tragedy in the composer's own life.  In the year preceding its 1837 premiere at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Donizetti had lost almost his entire family - both parents, his wife and two children.  As he himself wrote:"Without father, without mother, without wife, without children ... for whom do I work then?"  In light of these losses it's remarkable that he still had the self-possession to compose any work, let alone such a masterpiece.  And it certainly was a triumph of composition, a tightly constructed work that contained some of his most beautiful bel canto arias.

As in Donizetti's other Tudor operas, he had here a story readymade for staging.  While the opera may not be historically accurate, it does play its setting to the hilt and ends with a "mad scene" every bit as compelling as that of Lucia di Lammermoor written two years earlier.  What I thought most interesting, though, was the manner in which Elisabeth's jealous rage is cannily paralleled by that of the Duke of Nottingham.  By mirroring Elizabeth's state of mind in another character, the opera gives her role a great deal more depth than it would otherwise possess.

The production was certainly a triumph for Radvanovsky who has firmly established herself as one of the finest bel canto singers to arrive on the scene in decades.  I first saw her in Bellini's Norma several seasons ago and was deeply impressed even then by her vocal range.  And she was aided on Saturday afternoon by a splendid supporting cast.  Mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča was simply superb as Sara while tenor Matthew Polenzani in the title role of the doomed Devereux thrilled the audience with his solo aria in Act III.  And baritone Mariusz Kwiecień, who starred earlier this season with Polenzani in Les pêcheurs des perles, was highly effective as the Duke of Nottingham who after all has the best line in the entire opera when at the end he tells the Queen, "Blood I wanted, and blood I got!"

I was especially impressed by David McVicar's production.  It may not have been quite so opulent as the stagings Zeffirelli created for the Met in the 1980's, but it was still extremely elegant.  Even better, by making use of only one set it allowed the action to proceed without interruption and thereby helped heighten the drama.