Live-at-the-Met-in-HD's Striking Debut of Donizetti's "Roberto Devereux"

By Marlies Wolf

The American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky took up the challenge of performing the entire Trilogy composed by Gaetano Donnizetti in the incredibly exacting bel canto style -- in one season. Only such heavy-weights (or super-light-weights, as you may choose to categorize the voices) as Beverly Sills preceded her, performing the same bravura feat, at The City Opera in the 1970s.

Ms. Radvanovsky certainly delivered. As the frantic queen, convinced she has a rival for the love she seeks from Devereux, she did not miss a single note in the many spectacular riffs of the intricate, hugely ranged tessitura. Her quite powerful voice also handles pianissimo deftly. A suave actress to boot, it certainly was her afternoon! The audience at the Met itself responded with lengthy applause after her every “number” and gave her a standing ovation at the end, complete with the meaningful torn playbill shower fluttering from aloft.

Vocally it was quite an afternoon all around with the needed quartette all international super-stars. Elina Garanca, the Latvian mezzo-soprano (whom you might remember as a fabulously sexy Carmen or a delightful Rosina, in earlier seasons,) performed here as the unlucky “rival” Sara. The glamorous singer handled the bel canto score splendidly.

The erstwhile friends, turned jealousy-driven enemies, here were sung by the American lyric tenor Matthew Polenzani and the Polish baritone Mariusc Kwiecien -- the ill-fated Devereux and the Duke of Nottingham -- respectively. You may recall their striking performances as the friends in The Pearl Fishers, just a few weeks ago. They simply could not have been better in this bel canto extravaganza.

Sir David McVicar’s production, sticks to 16th Century- appropriate settings, sort of, as it did for the entire trilogy. The elaborate costuming, by Moritz Junge does the same.

So everything is appropriate for the particularly sorrowful drama -- except the music. Bel canto lends itself fabulously to comedy. Donizetti’s light operas such as Don Pasquale or La Fille du Régiment are highly successful proofs of that. Its oom-pah-pah approach, and the many repeats, simply do not portray heart-rending drama persuasively. (The popularity of Lucia not withstanding! That may persist because it is a test for, and love of, particular divas.)

Bel Canto champions may not agree, but Ms. Radvanovsky, although she performs the drama most seriously, obviously does. In a recent interview she referred to the music all being “boom chick-chick, boom chick-chick.”

Of the three Tudor-queen-operas, Roberto Devereux is the least memorable musically. Containing clumsy moments, such as an orchestral “God save the Queen,” but no unforgettable arias, may be the reason why it has been ignored by more houses than just the Met.

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) is categorized as providing the transitional stage between Rossini and the far more theatrically persuasive Verdi. Early Verdi still clings to some of the former tricks, but in the later operas you never catch him setting a serious aria in “boom chick-chick” time!

Technically the Tudor-Trilogy is really a Quartette, since a long forgotten Elisabetta al Castello di Kenilworth (1829,) preceded Anna Bolena (1830,) Maria Stuarda (1834,) and Roberto Devereux (1837.)

By the time the very prolific Donizetti composed Devereux, he had reached the very height of the bel canto style. Although successful with opera audiences, his personal life was as tragic as some of the stories he set to music.

His wife, Virginia Vasseli, who had given birth to two still-born children, died herself after a third still-born birth. Donnizetti who had lost his parents as well, wrote to his brother-in-law: “Without father, without mother, without wife, without children …for whom do I work then?”

The tragic deaths of wife and children may have been due to his having contracted syphilis, the disease to which he himself succumbed most horribly in 1848 at the age of 51.

His musical output, which included orchestral and chamber works, lived on. But with the advent of Verdi and Wagner, it was largely forgotten. Its remarkable revival later in the 20th Century, was probably due to the availability of great singers able to perform it. Dame Joan Sutherland and Beverly Sills contributed mightily to the revival. And as said, we surely have the super-talented singers now to carry the torch forward.

The Met was wise to cash in on the tremendous interest American audiences have in the Tudor Royals, Elizabeth in particular. We’ve clamored to the various TV series with Helen Mirren and Cate Blanchett for instance, and the many movies with Bette Davis, Judy Dench, Jean Simmons, Glenda Jackson, Flora Robson, merely to cite a few.

Just as those efforts take many “poetic licenses,” Devereux does, too. From where do they get a “Sara” as his love interest? Nottingham (who supposedly betrays Devereux [Essex] because of jealousy, was never married to anyone named Sara. Oh well, in the Davis/Flynn epic The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, (the Davis performance becoming the model for a fidgety, strident Elizabeth) decidedly loved Essex. In other versions it always is only Robert Dudley, her childhood friend, whom she made Earl of Leicester, who was the apple of her Royal eye. But who are we to nit-pick? Shakespeare, who really was around at her time, did not stick to historical facts either.

The afternoon’s host, Deborah Voigt, elicited informative interviews from the supercast and the conductor Maurizio Benini, who drew the expected wonderful tone from the great Met orchestra. Quite an interesting afternoon, for an opera the Met had never done before this season.

You can catch an encore on Wednesday, April 20th, 2016 at 6:30 PM, EST, or on Thursday, April 21st at 1:00 PM, EST.