Trebs

As I start this blog, for some singers, I want to share past memories before blogging about current performances. Here, Anna Netrebko ("Trebs") has just sang Anna Bolena for opening night (a soon-to-be-posted entry), but I have many mostly-fond memories of Trebs since 2007.

Romeo

Trebs and I go back 4 years, when she sang Romeo & Julliette.  Villazon had cancelled, and Roberto Alagna was the replacement Romeo.  It was a performance to remember.  Trebs totally flubbed the coloratura aria, as expected - mushy notes and smudgy runs.  But then as the night wore on, things got better and better.  There was the amazingly nude duet in bed, and then the poison aria.  No wonder Gheurghiu came to New York and got fired in Chicago - she wanted to keep her man in line.  He and Trebs had so much chemistry in that bed one wondered what exactly they were doing in it before the curtain came up.  And her porn-star-body was put to good use here with the lowest-cut nightgown in opera history.  And Roberto was in cute little shorts.  He's no 30 or even 35, but he still pulls off the boyish thing.

The poison aria set the standard to which all Trebs performances must now be compared.  She took a pretty little aria and turned it into a horrific mad scene.  There was some shrieking, some off-pitch highs, but it was LOUD.  And she was CRAZY.  Like Tybalt's ghost was there coming to get her.  Palpable fear.  And then as she walked up the stairs to the bed she suddenly faced exactly away from the audience and bellowed the last 30 seconds of the aria to the rear stage.  And you know what?  It was louder than anything I'd ever heard live.  So loud. So big.  Sound coming not from one tiny mouth but from deep inside the Met from a hundred directions.  And then right before her big trill-less final phrase, she slowly turned around and the sound transformed from everywhere to laser beam as it cut from right-to-left.  The house was in hysteria. 

The live-HD recording, made a few months later but with the same cast, captures this scene exactly as I remember.  Trebs does record very well, unlike others, like Radvanovsky, who sounds entirely like another person live vs. recorded (a thrilling live voice).  And, by the way, Trebs has this thing that is captured in every HD broadcast, where after a successful sing, but before the clapping starts, she wants so so so badly to grin like a 6-year-old at a school talent show - sometimes she suppresses it, but often fails (see the end of the mad scene in the Puritani HD).  After knocking back the potion she totally smiled before putting on her serious face and fainting.

The final scene was very touching.  Roberto was great, people were actually crying in the audience.  The acting was fantastic and the trying-but-failing to hold hands before dying was perfect.  Crowd went wild.

Lucia

Then there was the Lucia.  A night to remember.  Also the day before I started my first full-time permanent job ever, at the law firm where I currently work.  January 26, 2009.  Villazon was finally back after canceling everything I had bought tickets to see him sing for like 2 or 3 years (and then doing same in future, so far to date).  My first time hearing him.  Everyone was like: “Trebs as Lucia? But she can't do coloratura!!”  Having seen the HD of Puritani, I thought, well, she can't really do fast notes, but she might be game for most of this.  Her voice was crazy dark.  But weirdly none of that huge sound from Romeo.  It was like she had redone her voice - it was more accurate, more put together, but had lost some volume.  At least for a while. 

After a boring beginning to the next act, she had her duet with the hot (is he gay?) baritone brother, Mariusz Kwiecien, which had all kinds of creepy incestuous vibes to it.  Suddenly there was chest voice ripping everything on stage apart.  And then possibly the loudest note I've ever heard live, she ended the duet with the most frighteningly loud D-or-whatever, and probably caused brain damage to poor Mariusz.  It was thrilling. 

Then Villazon ended his career by singing an awful awful awful note, then lunging up to a higher note and cracking, then staring for 7 seconds in panic while Trebs and others looked back with even more panic, then singing the lower note again and having it sound (how it was possible, I don't know) even worse than the first try.  It was rough.  I must add, though, that they announced him as ill but soldiering on, and when he sang the final scene, (the one where everyone in the house is thinking, ugh, the mad scene is over, the soprano is backstage drinking by now, why are we still here?), Villazon was totally on fire.  Sure, apparently it was transposed down, but some of the best tenor singing I've heard.  The audience ate it up. 

The mad scene came, and everything was great until the duet-with-flute part, which, although fine, had none of the usual high stuff, and just seemed too safe to be worthwhile.  Then the supposed-to-be-high-e-flat was (I swear!) a flat D, and everything fell off track.  Then the Spargi, ____ wasn't so hot.  And the high Eflat was not only a flat D, but was in some alien register of her voice, part scream, part whirr, part teeny-tiny bird being squeezed to death.  People didn't know what to do, and the staging was set for two men to carry Lucia up a long flight of stairs during screaming and "brava's" for like a minute, but the clapping was over before they got up the first step, and it was really embarrassing.  At curtain calls, Anna looked really miserable.  Not happy at all.
The live HD broadcast captured no off-tune notes, but she didn't take the first e-flat, and the second one was kind of short, but at least loud and on pitch.  Even in that, she looks so miserable in the broadcast during curtain calls.  And not to agree with Anthony Tommassini, who always puts out totally bullshit opera reviews that are not in touch with reality, but he said something to the effect of "great singing except for those pesky high notes."  So true, everything else was great, but, as I have come to realize, the most important part of opera is high notes.  You can screw up an entire aria, but if you nail the last note, and hold it as long as you can, people will cheer.

Hoffman
Hoffman was supposed to be Villazon.  Trebs was supposed to sing all 3 female leads (why do they call them "Heroines?").  She dropped the coloratura doll and the whatever-she-is-sounds-like-mezzo, leaving Antonia.  I couldn't imagine in any world her singing the doll song, so thank goodness for that.  I think the 3rd act would have been fine for Trebs, but why bother singing 2 of 3?  Antonia was perfect for her.  Her first aria kind of sucked, just never got off the ground.  Duet with Hoffman was pretty great, and then the trio at the end was spectacular.  Again with the crazy Juliette bellowing voice.  Ultra loud.  I read somewhere that Trebs "dominated" the trio, and that is exactly it.  Dominated.  Obliterated.  And some really game acting, grasping at the sheet music in desperation. 

But then at the very end of the trio, there is a high note, and then a slightly higher one which ends the trio.  And again that weird bird-register voice appeared.  The first slightly lower note, was in bellowing voice - full, lush, rich, thrilling.  The high note (I think C-sharp maybe?), suddenly caused her voice to shift gears into that other register, and it wasn't so good.  And she totally knew because the second the sound started she realized it wasn't loud enough and started pushing hard.  And it got louder, and fuller, (sort-of), but it just sounded weird. 

And then I think she trilled on her death note.  Sounded like a trill to me - all this blog-hate of her not trilling, and I could swear that this was a Sutherland trill.  But whatever, she never trills anywhere where she actually should, so some of the blog-hate is justified. 

The opera continued through the boring third act, the muse looking really cute as a boy with that very fine line of how-nude-can-you-make-the-mezzo-and-still-have-her-as-a-convincing-boy?  Then the finale had all the singers in a giant chorus.  But you would think it was just Trebs.  There was the drone of many people singing, and blasting above it all was Trebs.  It was great.  For less than an hour of singing in a very very long opera, she certainly got more cheers than anyone else, even (unfairly, because he was great) the Hoffman, Joseph Calleja.

Boheme
Possibly my best night at the opera so far, was this Boheme.  Trebs, Ruth Ann Swenson, Piotr whats-his-name, and some dude as Marcello.  The tenor aria was spectacular, Piotr sang his heart out.  Trebs fooled us all with a delicately beautiful Mimi aria.  I thought, huh, suddenly she sings all lyrical and pretty?  Cool!  But then she shifted into a higher gear, and the size of her voice exploded.  The duet ending the first act was spectacular.  The offstage ending sounded as if she was standing in front of the orchestra pit with a megaphone.  It was sound coming from all directions.  Somewhere deep below was the tenor voice, but hers dominated.

Act II brought out Ruth Ann Swenson, a favorite that I regret not having seen much of.  I saw her in Julius Caesar, where she was amazing and fresh-voiced.  Then in a Traviata that was supposedly her last Met performance, which was heartbreaking and so so good (and with Kauffman I think, yum).  Then suddenly, she's back at the Met for half of the Musettas.  And her voice is not really that loud, but it is a laser beam.  Thrills for sure.  I was with a friend sitting about the middle of the balcony boxes, and you could really notice the difference in volume from when she was facing away, facing the middle of the audience, or aiming the laser right at the balcony boxes.  And luckily she aimed the laser at us pretty much all the time.  It tore through all other sound with sweet precision, and it was a great performance, especially in the last act with some excellent acting.

Act III came, the "snow scene" (J’s favorite), and here was Trebs in full form.  No sick-and-dying bullshit, just plain old mega volume.  My friend pointed out my habit, unknown to me until that night, that I grin like a fool on good high notes.  I spent the whole act grinning.  Trebs, as they say, "sang the shit" out of this music.  She needs to do more Puccini.  Manon Lescaut, please! 

Act IV brought on brilliant changing in tone of the voice, still loud, but wane and sad sounding.  Except the "I have so many things to tell you, well, one thing to tell you" part, which was maybe the loudest singing of the night.  Poor tenor had to have his big emotional outburst immediately following, and he didn't stand a chance of producing anything close to the same volume.  And then she died after some very loud breathing.  Nobody could have believed for a second that she had consumption with such huge singing, but some very good acting and a lot of chemistry with Piotr.  Hysteria during the curtain calls, very much deserved.  My face hurt from smiling.

Don Pasquale
I had very high expectations for this performance.  I knew nothing about the opera except the big aria.  I must have listened to her sing it from 2006 maybe 1,000 times on my ipod.  It's fantastic all the way through except the smudged fast notes, but she ends it with a ridiculously long thrilling high note.  So when, in 2010, the last note wasn't as loud or as long, it was a bit disappointing.  Still great, but I thought, huh, I guess she's just not as loud anymore.  And let's be honest, the most exciting thing about Trebs is superhuman volume.  And low-cut outfits.

After the initial disappointment on the big aria, things improved remarkably.  In the scene where she tricks Pasquale into marrying her, once she ripped off her hat and transformed from the innocent nunnery-girl to, well, Trebs, the huge voice was back.  Violently loud high outbursts all over the place to match the trashing of Pasqual's house.  Vases thrown, beds jumped on (screaming high notes and jumping on a bed at the same time, amazing!), stools flung dangerously close to the orchestra pit.  It was great great fun. 
The second half, I didn't enjoy as much, she's a bitch, she feels sorry, etc.  The finale was great, the "old men shouldn't get married" tune was very cute, and she soared above everyone (not difficult - wimpy tenor, old man, and super-hot Mariusz not really booming out like we know he can).  I think Levine was trying to make the singers balance out at the end, because I felt like she wanted to sing out more but was holding back - she had potential to rip out some stunning final notes, but instead blended nicely with everyone else - musical, but not as fun.  All in all, pretty good.  Memories of smudged coloratura were definitely erased by watching her trash Pasqual's place in the HD movie.  Sure, it’s cheesy and she’s campy, but its funny, and this is a comedy.  If she didn’t ham it up it would be as lame as, well, every time I’ve seen the Barber of Seville.