Ionarts in Santa Fe: Angela Meade

The Festival of Song series from Performance Santa Fe continued on Sunday afternoon. Although she is not featured on the Santa Fe Opera season this summer, soprano Angela Meade is in town, and her recital at the Santa Fe Scottish Rite Center was an affair not to be missed. Since Meade is not singing opera here this year, series director and accompanist Joe Illick allowed as how she could sing some opera arias along with the art songs.

Meade's is not a voice naturally suited to the more rarefied demands of art song. Two simple and slow songs by Bellini, Vaga luna and Ma rendi pur contento, were pretty but bordering on nondescript. In other cases, like Strauss's Zueignung, she just did not need the sort of vocal power applied to the music. These were only minor flaws in what was an intense, almost overwhelming recital that reinforced the preeminence of this extraordinarily gifted soprano. Meade brought subtlety to Liszt's song Oh! quand je dors, with a pearly control of her diminuendo and a longing turn of phrase in the memorable final phrase. At the keyboard Illick was right on the money in following Meade's twists and turns of rubato, and his left hand provided plenty of dynamic drive in larger songs like Liszt's Enfant, si j'étais roi.

In songs and especially opera arias where more squillo was needed, Meade excelled, the power of her voice and plenteous breath support like a thrilling electric surge. The restlessness of Strauss's Cäcilie, the soaring high parts of Korngold's Mariettas Lied, the soaring conclusion of Strauss's Zueignung -- all hit the right mark. When composers drew on the strengths of a voice like hers, it was the best of all, as in the intense crescendo and diminuendo at the opening of Pace, pace, mio Dio, from Verdi's La forza del destino, and especially the shrieked curses at the end of that piece ("Maledizione!"). Ebben?...Ne andrò lontana from Catalani's La Wally, music used to such memorable effect in Jean-Jacques Beineix's crazy 80s film Diva, made for an equally exciting conclusion. Most sopranos who sing Victor Herbert's Art Is Calling for Me (I Want to Be a Prima Donna) as an encore would get an Ionarts Eye-Roll Award, but Meade has earned it.

The next concert in the Festival of Song series will feature soprano Leah Crocetto (August 4, 4 pm), sadly after my departure from Santa Fe.

BSO Off the Cuff

Lecture-concerts -- with that losing combination of half the music and twice the talk -- are generally not my thing. So the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's decision to double down on its "Off the Cuff" concerts, to which two of its four performances are devoted this week, seemed mysterious to me. Best not to judge such things without experiencing them, however, so Friday evening found me braving the monsoon rains to get to Strathmore for the latest concert in the series. If the chatty format is meant to make newcomers to classical music feel more comfortable, all while charging the same ticket price without having to play the week's entire program, one would hope there are more seats filled at the Music Center in weeks without a hurricane looming off the east coast.

The rest of my weekend review schedule meant that this performance of Markus Stenz's first concert as the BSO's Principal Guest Conductor, focused on excerpts from Mozart's Don Giovanni, was my only option. Stenz was charming and generally informative in the half-hour lecture, an introduction of the opera's music and story with live orchestra examples, complete with Tcherman accent and amusing minor grammatical errors. His ideas about the opera seemed influenced by the René Jacobs recording, with some rather fast tempo choices, strings light on vibrato, crisp articulation over legato phrasing, and timpani and brass allowed to push into the foreground at loud moments.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, BSO offers kinetic Mozart program with Stenz, Meade (Baltimore Sun, October 2)

Another reason to brave the weather was the chance to hear soprano Angela Meade, who made a powerhouse Donna Anna, albeit without the most suave floating tone at the top, so crucial for the musical characterization of Anna's innocence. Likewise, soprano Jennifer Black, who sang Donna Elvira at the Castleton Festival last year, did not really have the vocal force for that character's vengeful harshness. (Not for the first time, I wondered what the opera would sound like if you switched these voice types around in casting.) Pureum Jo made a noteworthy BSO debut as Zerlina, a role that did not come off as mousy at all with her voice, and Thomas Richards was a strong Leporello, outshining the Don Giovanni of Morgan Smith in the Act II finale.

Another Ninth Symphony

T. F. Kelly, First Nights: Five Musical Premiers (including Beethoven's ninth symphony) (Yale UP, 2001)

Both of the pieces on this week's program from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, heard on Thursday night at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, are repetitions from recent seasons: John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, from 2006, and Beethoven's ninth symphony, more recently (and already planned again for next season). The combination of the two was also curious in that the events of the day commemorated by the Adams piece, September 11, 2001, seem to smash any and all hope one might have in the words of Schiller hammered on by Beethoven, "Alle Menschen werden Brüder." (The pairing was the same at the New York Philharmonic premiere of the Adams.) Worse than that, the length of the Adams made necessary some extremely fast tempi in the Beethoven, as if music director Marin Alsop was hellbent on hitting the target of a two-hour concert, as announced in the program. She almost made it by 10 pm, but at a cost.

My feelings about the Adams piece were not altered much by this performance, namely that it had its greatest power in the aftermath of the attacks, winning Adams a Pulitzer Prize in 2003, but as the years recede, its emotional power ebbs and weaknesses are revealed. I would love to hear the score without the recorded track, a recitation of victims' names and words spoken by their families, quoted in the New York Times. Most of the music is simple and repetitive in nature, soft chords that rise up and vanish through sections of the orchestra, and without those recorded voices it would be revealed as a vanilla accompaniment. Both the Baltimore Choral Arts Society and Peabody Children's Chorus made pleasing and well-articulated contributions to the atmospheric nature of the piece. It has one major emotional climax, as the chorus takes up the words of the wife of L. Russell Keene III, one of the victims -- "I wanted to dig him out. I know just where he is" -- in a sort of gut-wrenching howl, with big sweeps of Sibelius-like sound in the orchestra. Little else leaves a lasting impression.

Other Reviews: Simon Chin, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra perform 9/11 tribute paired with Beethoven (Washington Post, June 8) Tim Smith, Affecting pairing of Adams, Beethoven from the Baltimore Symphony (Baltimore Sun, June 7)

Beethoven's ninth symphony is performed so often that conductors look for something to make their interpretation stand out, and movement by movement Alsop's was marked by an almost anxious, frenetic quality. The first movement was rushed in a way that left little room for the "poco maestoso" part that Beethoven wanted to happen. In this attempt to wrench all the drama from the piece she could, most of the mystery of the movement, especially in the coda, was rushed over, with some sloppiness in the faster runs of the violins and winds. The scherzo was, appropriately, very fast and crisply articulated, but it felt more studious than playful, more furrowed brow than arched brow. Even beyond the sudden rests, the shift of time in the trio, and the surprise entrances of the timpani, it should have a playful side. The straightening out of the extreme rubato often applied to the third movement was much appreciated, but when you do not have to subdivide an Adagio molto, you are probably going too fast. The reason to make the trip to Baltimore was to hear a rather fine vocal quartet -- Angela Meade, Jennifer Johnson Cano, Dimitri Pittas, and Eric Owens (stepping in at the last minute to replace James Morris) -- but there was little to savor at the tempi imposed by Alsop. All of the musicians gave their best, but too much of this performance, from the first unsteady statement of the main theme by Owens, felt unsettled and rushed, even the final quartet moment, where Alsop could have luxuriated in Meade's voice soaring over our heads but did not.

This concert repeats tonight at Strathmore and tomorrow afternoon in Baltimore.

Verdi Celebrated at Caramoor

Charles T. Downey, Angela Meade sizzles in Verdi’s “Vêpres” at Caramoor (The Classical Review, July 7)

Verdi, Les vêpres siciliennes, J. Brumaire, J. Bonhomme, BBC Concert Orchestra, M. Rossi (Opera Rara)

Don’t look now, but it’s time for another annoying composer anniversary. Worse, the Verdi bicentenary this year is the most irritating kind of composer anniversary, requiring us to commemorate a composer whose operas are already quite familiar, even too much so. Will Crutchfield’s ingenious solution, for his summer of Verdi on the Bel Canto at Caramoor series, is to examine the Italian composer’s French works. This approach has the double advantage of avoiding any of the chestnuts in the Verdi canon, while actually drawing attention to some quite neglected works. [Continue reading]

Verdi, Les vêpres siciliennes
Libretto by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier
Orchestra of St. Luke's, Will Crutchfield (conductor)
Caramoor

SEE ALSO:
Zachary Woolfe, An Italian in Paris: How a New Stage Lifted Verdi (New York Times, July 8)

John Yohalem, Les Vêpres de Westchester (Parterre.com, July 7)

Verdi’s ‘missing link’ opera ‘Les vepres siciliennes’ getting bicentennial lift (Associated Press, July 5)

Nick Clark, Turmoil at the Royal Opera House as choreographer pulls out of Giuseppe Verdi's Les Vêpres Siciliennes (The Independent, June 7)

More 'Norma'

Angela Meade in Norma, Washington National Opera, 2013 (photo by Scott Suchman for WNO)
Even theater and cinema require a suspension of disbelief, a surrendering of the doubts of everyday perception to the narrative tide presented to the senses. Opera, however, is in a class by itself in this department, as "the extravagant art" (in the memorable phrase of scholar Herbert Lindenberger) -- "an exotic and irrational entertainment," as Samuel Johnson put it. Anyone who wants to enjoy opera has to accept that in the world on that stage, people sing instead of speak, to the accompaniment of an orchestra. All sorts of far-fetched things happen, including plot twists few would be willing to accept in theater or cinema, but somehow the emotional heightening achieved by music makes it all satisfying, in a way that has little to do with realism, theatrical or otherwise. Different viewers will have different limitations on just how much they can accept visually, but with many opera lovers, including your reviewer, if the singing is excellent, many other shortcomings can be easily overlooked -- like the Norma of Angela Meade, who is in her 30s, addressing the Adalgisa of Dolora Zajick, who is twice Meade's age, as "giovinetta."

The singing in Washington National Opera's current production of Bellini's Norma, all critics agree, is excellent, indeed more than excellent. I have already written about both the cast and the production, by theater director Anne Bogart, in my review of opening night, and Robert R. Reilly added a second opinion about the second performance. The chance to hear the third and fourth performances this past week, on Friday and Monday nights, offered a chance to reassess the production. If I could have heard all six performances, I would have, solely for the opportunity to hear this cast, which is top-notch. Further hearings confirmed that Angela Meade is one of the voices you will want to hear in years to come, supported with consummate power and professionalism by Dolora Zajick as Adalgisa and bass Dmitry Belosselskiy as Oroveso. Tenor Rafael Davila actually got better as Pollione later in the run, with more security and legato smoothness at the top of his range, if still not that much sound at the bottom. Unfortunately, when I wrote that Mauricio Miranda "had a very off night as Flavio," I was being kind. It was somewhat surprising to me that he was not replaced later in the run: surely the company can produce a better singer to round out this otherwise excellent cast.

First Performance: Charles T. Downey, Meade and Zajick, Trionfo in 'Norma' (Ionarts, March 11) Anne Midgette, Washington National Opera’s ‘Norma’ takes all that symbolism rather literally (Washington Post, March 11) Second Performance: Robert R. Reilly, Second Opinion: WNO 'Norma' — Good Opera, Bad Theater (Ionarts, March 15)

If Anne Bogart's production -- static, ritualized, abstract -- did not really grow on me, it did not grate on me more either, even by the end of the third performance I saw. The libretto places the action in one of the groves sacred to the Druids (foresta sacra de' druidi), but Oroveso's first line instructs the Druids to go up the hills ("Ite sul colle, o Druidi!"), and Neil Patel's organic set provides just such a steeply raked incline. Not much later, Pollione sings of a demonic power that seems to be leading him into a yawning pit ("l'abisso aperto"), which may have inspired the sort of pit that opens up on the right side of the stage. After having sat house right at the first and third performances, I saw the show from house left on Monday night, and it is much less flattering visually, because the scene is dominated by the more squared-off façade to the right representing the Roman occupiers.

The sound is also better from the right side of the house, with the singers more direct and exposed on the left, and the two powerful crescendos at the end of the opera's final number not sounding as perfectly balanced from that position in relation to the orchestra. Conductor Daniele Rustioni settled into the score later in the run, hitting the right tempi with greater assurance and fewer histrionic gestures. The orchestra continued to sound quite good, with some bad intonation issues in the trumpets appearing during the third performance, including the off-stage banda effects. The orchestra remained in its new seating arrangement, introduced by music director Philippe Auguin in the performances of Manon Lescaut, with the strings and harp at the center, the woodwinds on the left and the brass and percussion on the right. The intention is to create a better balance in the house, and it seemed to work much better on the right side of the house than on the left.

Two performances of this production remain, on Thursday night and Sunday afternoon, in the Kennedy Center Opera House. Readers who hear any of the later performances are invited to share their thoughts in the comments section.

Second Opinion: WNO Norma—Good Opera, Bad Theater

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from The Kennedy Center.

Tuesday evening, the Washington National Opera presented a vocally splendid but dramatically inert version of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma. The production seemed to harken back to an earlier era of opera when the star singers simply planted themselves down-stage and sang with minimal regard for acting or the other dramatic verities. The drama was solely vocal, rather than fully theatrical.

Soprano Angela Meade, who sang the title role, first gained acclaim in a concert version of Norma. It is easy to understand why. She has a very powerful voice which she can deploy in almost any shade. She especially excelled in “Casta diva”, in her vocal duets with Adalgisa, gloriously sung by mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick, and in the exchanges late in the second act both with Norma’s father Oroveso, and Norma’s erstwhile love Pollione. She showed no sign of fatigue from her very taxing role.

Other Reviews: Charles Downey, Meade and Zajick, Trionfo in 'Norma' (ionarts, March 11) Anne Midgette, Washington National Opera’s ‘Norma’ takes all that symbolism rather literally (Washington Post, March 11)

The singing was so good that the production values actually distracted from it. What one heard was so superior to what one saw that a concert version of the opera would actually have been preferable. The program in the Playbill suggests that much of the bias against bel canto opera had been based on questionable premises, “especially the assumption that the style always required musical values to overshadow dramatic ones”. It may have been quite unintentional, but that seems to have been the operating principle of this production. The evening’s musical values were not just the singing, either, but also the Washington National Opera Orchestra’s fine playing, under the supple and energetic direction of the young Italian conductor Daniele Rustioni.

Read more »

Meade and Zajick, Trionfo in 'Norma'

Dolora Zajick (Adalgisa) and Angela Meade (Norma) in Norma, Washington National Opera, 2013 (photo by Scott Suchman for WNO -- more images)

It has been quite a couple of years for bel canto opera at Ionarts, when we have reviewed productions of Anna Bolena and Lucia di Lammermoor (Washington National Opera), I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Caramoor), and La Sonnambula (Washington Concert Opera). Bel canto opera is supposed to be all about beautiful singing, and by that criterion the new production of Bellini's Norma, heard on Saturday night, is a triumph, with top-notch singing deep into the cast roster. If you are looking for compelling theater -- a plot that makes sense, characters that have depth and subtlety -- bel canto opera is probably not for you. Updating of time or other unusual directorial ideas can deepen the silly stories of most of these operas -- David Alden showed how it can be done with his Lucia two years ago -- but there is something to be said for just letting the singing stand for itself.

Soprano Angela Meade was a knockout in the title role, which she is singing on stage for the first time. It was not a standout because she was the most powerful Norma or the one with the strongest high notes, nor did she give the character the same kind of dramatic edge as some other more famous Normas. Meade deployed her velvety voice to give a truly beautiful finish to this mother of all bel canto roles, with a suave, hypnotic Casta diva, for example. (Compare this to the last Norma we reviewed here, Hasmik Papian at Baltimore Opera.) There was power in Meade's voice, too, allowing her to soar over the orchestra and to stand her ground with the much more experienced and frankly just louder Adalgisa of Dolora Zajick, but it was the elegance of the performance that remains with me, both in Meade's calm presence and in the cleanness and warmth of her tone. We knew from Zajick's WNO debut, in a potent Cavalleria rusticana in 2008, that she can fill the Kennedy Center Opera House with sound. What we did not know was that she could handle the more subtle demands of a bel canto role like this one: a messa di voce that could take your breath away, a fine pianissimo (not as refined as the younger Meade), and considerable agility. Norma is really all about the solos and duets of the two leads, and in this production there is no doubt of that.

Tenor Rafael Davila had a fairly good company debut as Pollione, the Roman proconsul who has had two children with Norma, the supposedly chaste priestess of the local druids in Gaul. Some of the notes at the top were not quite stable and it was not always exactly a clarion tone, but there was beauty when he needed it, even if he was clearly second fiddle to Meade and Zajick. Bass Dmitry Belosselskiy was a puissant Oroveso, Norma's father, with a moving scene with Meade toward the end of the second act, when he learns of his daughter's betrayal. The two supporting roles were filled by Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists, with the Clotilde of Julia Mintzer standing out for vocal vitality and compelling presence (she was one of the best parts of the New Opera Initiative performance last fall), while Mauricio Miranda had a very off night as Flavio.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, Washington National Opera’s ‘Norma’ takes all that symbolism rather literally (Washington Post, March 11) Susan Dormady Eisenberg, Angela Meade Riffs on Her Dazzling New Role as She Debuts Norma at Washington National Opera (Huffington Post, March 11) Tim Smith, Washington National Opera's 'Manon Lescaut,' 'Norma' hit mark with Racette, Meade (Artsmash, March 12)

The new staging, by theater director Anne Bogart, is minimal but also traditional (like the vaguely medieval costumes by James Schuette), with a single set (designed by Neil Patel) showing a steeply raked incline with a ceremonial pit, flanked by wooden structures on either side, the whole thing in a lunar color range of white on gray. The backdrop, a large somewhat abstract depiction of the moon, à la Arthur Dove, adds to the sense of ritual distance, heightened by the mostly slow movements given to the singers. At times, a white cloth descended to create the sense of an inner room, but for the most part it is a static setting that, combined with the motionlessness of the opera -- little happens and the characters sing about that little happening a lot -- may bore some viewers. The only element out of place in this becalmed vision of the world of the ancient druids was at the podium, where young conductor Daniele Rustioni made his company debut. By his histrionic gestures -- leaps and mane shakes a-plenty -- he indicated a general lack of patience with the tidal pull of the score, often having to roll back on tempi that he initiated far too quickly. In spite of it all, orchestra and chorus both sounded strong, rounding out a performance -- if not a staging -- that should iron itself out quite nicely in the weeks to come.

This production runs through March 24, in the Kennedy Center Opera House. It is, we remind you, the last opera production of the WNO season.

SVILUPPO:
The set designer of this production, Neil Patel, confirms the inspiration of Arthur Dove in his abstract backdrop, in the comments here.

More of the Same from the BSO

See my review of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and a preview of their 2011-2012 season at Washingtonian.com:

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Serves Up Yet Another "Requiem" (Washingtonian, June 13):

How often does Verdi’s Requiem get performed in the Washington area? At least once a year seems a reasonable guess, and it's generally true, but this season will see even more performances than that. In fact, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s season-ending performance of the work, heard on Saturday night at Strathmore, is the third in less than three weeks, following those by the Prince George’s Philharmonic (May 14) and the National Philharmonic (May 21). Marin Alsop’s blockbuster debut season with the BSO, in 2007-08, seemed to have inaugurated a daring new period for the ensemble—the first “major” American orchestra to be led by a woman as music director. Whatever the reason, Alsop’s programming in subsequent seasons has not been nearly as exciting, and the season past was no different, with a few exceptions. Alsop’s focus on contemporary music, especially by American composers, has continued, albeit with works that it is hard to describe as great. So this performance of the biggest choral chestnut of them all seemed par for the course.

Alsop had an outstanding soprano soloist in Angela Meade, who was frankly the only reason that I wanted to hear another Requiem. The reviews of Meade did not exaggerate: She has a tremendously powerful and flexible dramatic voice, and she blew the rest of the quartet out of the water in terms of both power and subtlety. Even at the loudest parts of the score, with the entire BSO at full bore, Meade’s voice sailed clearly over the fray, while she also had suave control of her voice at soft dynamics, shimmering in the stratosphere in the “Lacrymosa” movement. What Verdi does to the soprano in the closing “Libera me” is sadistic, calling for a high B-flat at pppp. It is unfair to judge an entire performance on the basis of one note, but the sound of that note can make or break the piece. Meade got it and held it, perhaps a little tenuous, the only minor quibble about an otherwise stellar performance. To be fair, this was her third-straight evening singing this very demanding piece. [Continue reading]

Ionarts at Large: Ernani at the Met

Thomas Hampson (Don Carlo) and Sondra Radvanovsky (Elvira) in Ernani, Metropolitan Opera, 2008, photo by Marty Sohl

My latest trip to New York ended with a performance at the Metropolitan Opera, the first production of Giuseppe Verdi's Ernani mounted by the house since 1985. It is unlikely to be on many people's lists of favorite operas, only Verdi's fifth attempt (premiered March 9, 1844, at La Fenice), almost a decade before the composer knew enough and could demand enough to produce the Big Three of the early 1850s (Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, and La Traviata). Much of the work's weakness is due to the ridiculous story, but we cannot blame everything on the libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. In many ways, the opera is an improvement on its source text, Hernani (1830), a convoluted play by Victor Hugo that caused quite a stir at its premiere.

Other Reviews: Martin Bernheimer, Virus season at the Met (Financial Times, March 20) Bernard Holland, From the Attic, a Verdi Craves Attention (New York Times, March 19) Jay Nordlinger, Verdi, Strong & Steady (New York Sun, March 19) Harry Rolnick, The Splendid and the Silly (ConcertoNet, March 19)

The confusion is caused by the fact that everyone in the play wants to marry the prima donna, which is just the way that sopranos like things. Elvira is betrothed to her older cousin, Silva, but is in love with Ernani, the disgraced nobleman turned bandit. To make things more confusing, the King of Spain, Don Carlo, tries to steal Elvira away, at the same time as he is trying to get himself elected as Holy Roman Emperor. (One cannot help picturing the Democratic convention playing out like this, with shadowy conspiracies and plotted assassinations.) Silva and Ernani make an uneasy truce, agreeing to work together to save Elvira and get revenge on Don Carlo. Silva saves Ernani's life, accepting the latter's oath that his life will be forfeit at a later date. Don Carlo, elected Emperor, renounces his claim on Elvira, pardons Ernani, and orders that they be married. The tragic ending is ensured, however, as Silva appears, blowing the horn that is the sign of Ernani's pledge, and Ernani stabs himself. (He needs to get himself a better lawyer.) It could be much more of a bloodbath: in the Hugo play, Hernani and Doña Sol (Elvira) both drink poison, and Silva, in grief, subsequently kills himself.

The production is a revival of Pier-Luigi Samaritani's staging from 1983, and it remains overblown, fluffy, and dated. Huge paintings, billowing curtains, enormous towers, vast moonscapes were little more than stage space-filling backdrop for the plain staging by Peter McClintock. If poor Sondra Radvanovsky had to sing plaintively on her knees one more time, often perched precariously on oversized stairs, she was going to need physical therapy. The costumes by Peter J. Hall were handsome enough, with additional credit going to various designers for the multiplicity of hats and furs. Conductor Roberto Abbado did as well as one could expect with the perfunctory overture, which is over before much of it registers at all on the ear. He is not as authoritative a presence on the podium, and the orchestra did not always sound that attentive to him. When the singers got ahead of the beat, as happened more than once, he was efficient at realigning the ensemble. The on-stage banda played well, especially in the wedding number with castanets in Act IV.

Marcello Giordani (Ernani) and Sondra Radvanovsky (Elvira) in Ernani, Metropolitan Opera, 2008, photo by Suzanne DeChillo

After all of the casting drama with the Met's Tristan, American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky also fell ill, struggling through the opening night and then suddenly replaced by newcomer Angela Meade at the second performance. Radvanovsky was back in the saddle on Wednesday night, a pleasing stage presence and large, solid voice, shading just a scintilla below the pitch because of its weightiness. The omnipresent Marcello Giordani, who recently described himself as the Met's "house tenor," takes on his nth role as Ernani. His voice had ring and brilliance, and he cut a dashing figure as the bandit hero, but one cannot help but notice a certain superstar quality missing from his portfolio. At the same time, it is a welcome relief to watch a lead singer distinguished by his sense of modesty. Ferruccio Furlanetto stole the show with his snarling, resonant Silva. That world-class performance was matched, somewhat less stormily, by Thomas Hampson, who was a patrician, supercilious Don Carlo. If you are going to sit through Ernani, you should at least have a cast this good to sing it.

This opera will be repeated at the matinee performance today (March 29, 1:30 pm), broadcast live on the Met radio broadcast, as well as on April 2, 5, and 10.