[Met Performance] CID:323890



La Bohème
Metropolitan Opera House, Wed, April 10, 1996

Debut : Simone Young, Roberto Alagna, William Shimell




La Bohème (1031)
Giacomo Puccini | Luigi Illica/Giuseppe Giacosa
Mimì
Angela Gheorghiu

Rodolfo
Roberto Alagna [Debut]

Musetta
Karita Mattila

Marcello
William Shimell [Debut]

Schaunard
David Malis

Colline
Stefano Palatchi

Alcindoro/Benoit
Ara Berberian

Parpignol
John Hanriot

Sergeant
Kenneth Young

Officer
John Russell


Conductor
Simone Young [Debut]





Photograph of Roberto Alagna as Rodolfo by Winnie Klotz / Metropolitan Opera.

Review 1:

Charles Michener in the New York Observer

But can there be "another Pavarotti”? That question was the sword of Damocles poised over Roberto Alagna, the 32-year-old French- Italian tenor whose appearance the following night in “La Bohème” — in which Mr. Pavarotti made his sensational first Met performance in 1968 — was the most eagerly awaited operatic debut in years. From the impetuous [beginning] bars, it was clear that this was going to be an extraordinary night. Making her debut in the pit was the second woman ever to conduct at the Met, the Australian Simone Young, who sailed into the score with a zest and precision that grabbed you by the collar. Seemingly oblivious to the burst of applause that greeted his appearance, Mr. Alagna, a compact, appealingly boyish Rodolfo, jousted with his starving-artist buddy Marcello (handsomely sung by the baritone William Shimell in another debut) with an appealing lack of posturing and a wonderfully bright, clean sound that immediately had me salivating for the arrival of Mimi and "Che gelida manina."


Mimi, sung by Angela Gheorghiu, the lovely young Romanian soprano who also happens to be Mr. Alagna's real-life fiancée, made her little knock on the door. The two were deliciously getting to know each other when it happened — every tenor's nightmare. Reaching for the climax in his solicitous offer to warm Mimi's frozen hands, Mr. Alagna cracked just when he should have been holding that heart-stopping high-C for an eternity. Not a bad crack — and possibly, I thought, a nice show of modesty on the young tenor's part. And crack, or perhaps choke, he did again on the high C in which. Rodolfo and Mimi join hearts in the act's closing love duet, "O soave fanciulla." She, Ms. Gheorghiu, was rapturously there. He wasn't.


It would be cruel and pointless for me to describe the progressive fading of Mr. Alagna's voice as the evening wore on. Suffice it to: say that by the third act, he sounded as though an invisible scarf were being slowly tightened around his throat; that he and Ms. Gheorghiu, whose Mimi was at once dulcet and ravishing, looked absolutely stricken as they took their brief curtain call; that the Met's general manager, Joseph Volpe, arrived on stage before the fourth act to explain that Mr. Alagna was suffering from a worsening cold and producing a "great deal of phlegm" (an unnecessary piece of information), but wanted to finish the opera; that Mr. Alagna struggled manfully but faintly to the bitter end; and that his final, single curtain call (taken with Ms. Gheorghiu) was one of the briefest in the Met's history.


What a sadness. There's not much that opera — and the world in general — could use more than "another Pavarotti." But disappointing though Mr. Alagna's Met debut was, the sword of Damocles didn't fall. As opera lovers in Europe have been swearing – and as CD listeners can sense from his spectacular debut solo album of French and Italian arias (EMI Classics 55477-2) and his splendid, just released recording of arias and duets with Ms. Gheorghiu (EMI Classics 56117-2) – the former pizza tenor's voice is capable of a free, heroic ardor that, like Mr. Pavarotti's, sounds utterly unmanufactured. It's a miracle of nature that doesn't come along very often. Mr. Alagna has a few more Bohèmes on his Met schedule this spring, and he'll doubtless be with us a long time. I can't wait to hear him again.



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