gramilano

This was very much Anna Net­rebko’s Anna Bolena. True, it is the title role, but the other char­ac­ters have to work quite hard too. Her face was emot­ing from every review, and so here’s a round-up of what the critic’s had to say about Anna as Anna at the Met.

Anne Midgette’s review for The Wash­ing­ton Post loved the voice, but was sur­prised about our diva’s reac­tion to the applause (a com­mon theme),

Net­rebko has a beau­ti­ful voice, and though it some­times lacked the stam­ina for this long even­ing there was one moment on Monday when it really shone. In the aria in the final scene, when the char­ac­ter is lapsing in and out of mad­ness, she sat back and let her sig­na­ture limpid, round, melt­ing tone pour out. The audi­ence, delighted finally to have some­thing to applaud, rewar­ded her with a deserved ova­tion, and the singer acknow­ledged their applause with a warm smile. Net­rebko is not someone who wor­ries too much about stay­ing in character.

James Jorden for The New York Post had no qualms whatsoever,

The new mon­arch — rul­ing not over Eng­land but the Met — is Anna Net­rebko, whose radi­ant per­form­ance at the company’s open­ing night Monday cata­pul­ted her to “prima donna assol­uta”: undis­puted super­star. Already cel­eb­rated for her glam­or­ous face and voice, the fiery Russian-born diva has developed into a great tra­gic per­former. Her cli­mactic, 30-minute mad scene set in the Tower of Lon­don ranged from des­pair to rage.

Heidi Walson in The Wall Street Journal wrote,

With her dark, volup­tu­ous vocal timbre, Ms. Net­rebko has the power and range that the role requires, but she hasn’t cap­tured the soul of Donizetti’s belea­guered queen.

and added,

Ms. Netrebko’s bel canto exe­cu­tion has improved since she sang Vin­cenzo Bellini’s “I Pur­it­ani” sev­eral sea­sons ago: Her col­oratura is cleaner and she sings con­son­ants more con­sist­ently. How­ever, her inton­a­tion wavered dis­con­cert­ingly through­out the even­ing. What is more, the oper­atic Anne is an entirely inno­cent victim—everybody (except Henry) loves her—and the char­ac­ter seesaws between des­pair and queenly defi­ance. Ms. Net­rebko did the defi­ance part well, and when the role called for power, insist­ence, con­flict and cul­min­at­ing high notes, there were thrill­ing moments.

But she doesn’t con­vey vul­ner­ab­il­ity the­at­ric­ally or vocally, and if we don’t pity Anne, there’s no show. When Ms. Net­rebko had to plead or des­pair, the ten­sion in her vocal per­form­ance sagged.

But Zack­ary Woolfe in The New York Observer had no doubts that we were in the pres­ence of Cal­las’ heir,

Ms. Netrebko’s voice, at 40, is warm and full, without edge. Her appeal is decept­ively simple: when she sings, you don’t want her to stop. Her per­form­ance is both dar­ing and assured. At the end of Act I, she almost chokes out “Guidici? Ad Anna?” (“Judges? For Anne?”) when she real­izes her fate has been sealed, then tele­scopes the fol­low­ing note out­ward, pivot­ing from shock to rage. She faces upstage at key moments, trust­ing that she can con­vey emo­tion through pos­ture alone.

Some opera fans ima­gine col­oratura in a vacuum, as a mind­less series of vocal calis­then­ics. This atti­tude has rewar­ded sing­ers who merely dazzle. But Ms. Net­rebko is in the tra­di­tion of Maria Cal­las, who under­stood that col­oratura should be an organic out­growth of the musical line, a means of amp­li­fy­ing emo­tion. Her runs and trills, accur­ate and styl­ish, never exist for their own sake.

Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim for The Clas­sical Review was in full agreement,

The even­ing belonged to Net­rebko who seems to pas­sion­ately believe in her char­ac­ter. Her mad scene at the end when, minutes before her exe­cu­tion, she loses her mind and has flash­backs to her child­hood and her early romance with Percy might not be his­tor­ic­ally foun­ded but Net­rebko gave it just the right mix of pathos and cred­ib­il­ity. There is always a con­sist­ent fire in Netrebko’s heroines, and her final ges­ture, before walk­ing out to meet the axe, was to wrap her long hair around her wrist and lift it up to expose her neck, proud and defiant.

In The Fin­an­cial Times, Mar­tin Bernheimer noted that with “almost everyone’s favour­ite ove­rhyped diva” in the title role,

Never mind Anna Bolena. One might as well name the show Anna Net­rebko.

And had some doubts whether she had all the vocal require­ments for the part,

Net­rebko enjoyed pre­dict­able ova­tions, and acknow­ledged some of them mid-scene with a rav­ish­ing smile. Still, it would be an exag­ger­a­tion to claim that her Bolena can rank with such par­agons as Cal­las and Caballé. Net­rebko sang the reflect­ive pas­sages sweetly, with shim­mer­ing pian­is­simo tone and a lovely legato. She earned admir­a­tion for hold­ing noth­ing back in forte out­bursts. She com­por­ted her­self with queenly dig­nity as needed, and with unac­cus­tomed restraint.

Ideally, how­ever, this excru­ci­at­ing chal­lenge demands a voice one size big­ger and one size heav­ier. It also demands an easier top exten­sion and a bet­ter col­oratura tech­nique. (Trills? What trills?)

Anthony Tom­mas­ini in The New York Times was sim­il­arly per­turbed by Netrebko’s smile at her applause,

Ms. Net­rebko sang an eleg­antly sad aria with lus­trous warmth, aching vul­ner­ab­il­ity and float­ing high notes. When the audi­ence broke into pro­longed applause and bra­vos, Ms. Net­rebko seemed to break char­ac­ter and smile a couple of times, though her look could have been taken as appro­pri­ate to the dra­matic moment, since the delu­sional Anna is lost in rev­erie about happy days with her former lover.

Then, at the end of this “Mad Scene,” Anna, restored to hor­rific real­ity, curses the “wicked couple,” the king and his new queen, and stalks off to her exe­cu­tion, insist­ing implaus­ibly that she is not seek­ing divine retri­bu­tion but going to her grave with mercy on her lips. Ms. Net­rebko dis­patched Donizetti’s cabaletta, all fiery col­oratura runs and vehe­ment phrases, with a defi­ance that brought down the house.

Yet Ms. Netrebko’s Anna and the over­all per­form­ance of the opera were not what they could have been.

But let’s give the last word to Midgette,

Even Net­rebko, the big star, still comes off as a will­ing novice, someone who doesn’t always live up to her con­sid­er­able poten­tial. If she approached the part with the focus and com­mit­ment of a Maria Cal­las, or if opera com­pan­ies today actu­ally inves­ted time in help­ing sing­ers to mas­ter the music they’re per­form­ing, the even­ing might have been a whole lot better.

Ah yes…

Photo: Anna Net­rebko as Donizetti’s “Anna Bolena”, Met­ro­pol­itan Opera 2011, Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

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