[Met Performance] CID:350248

Metropolitan Opera Premiere, New Production

Sly
Metropolitan Opera House, Mon, April 1, 2002

Debut : Rachelle Durkin, Marta Domingo




Sly (1)
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari | Giovacchino Forzano
Sly
Plácido Domingo

Dolly
Maria Guleghina

Count of Westmoreland
Juan Pons

John Plake
John Fanning

Hostess
Jane Bunnell

Rosalina
Reveka Evangelia Mavrovitis

Snare
Jeffrey Wells

Coachman
Roger Andrews

Soldier
Ian Greenlaw

Magistrate
Bernard Fitch

Cook
Glenn Bater

Apprentice
Joel Sorensen

Chauffeur
Mark Schowalter

Nobleman
Michael Forest

Nobleman
Eduardo Valdes

Nobleman
Troy Cook

Nobleman
Franco Pomponi

Nobleman
Philip Cokorinos

Handmaiden
Rachelle Durkin [Debut]

Handmaiden
Yvonne Gonzales Redman

Handmaiden
Sandra Piques Eddy

Page
Tony Stevenson

Master of Ceremonies
LeRoy Lehr

Sommelier
Richard Vernon

Angel of Death
Christine McMillan


Conductor
Marco Armiliato


Production
Marta Domingo [Debut]

Designer
Michael Scott

Lighting Designer
Duane Schuler





Sly received nine performances this season.
Production from the Washington Opera
*[Note: Until 1/13/03, Rachelle Durkin was billed as Rachel Durkin.
Until 1/13/03, Rachelle Durkin was billed as Rachel Durkin.

FUNDING:
Production a gift in part of Mr. and Mrs. Paul M. Montrone
Additional funding by The Eleanor Dana Charitable Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts; and a group of the Directors of the Metropolitan Opera

Review 1:

Review of Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times

A Sad Tale, A Footnote, Rarely Seen

A Domingo & Domingo production of a work from 1927

The Metropolitan Opera owes Plácido Domingo big time for nearly 35 years he has given more to the Met than to any other company. So when Mr. Domingo, who runs the Washington Opera, urged the Met to import his company's 1999 American premiere production of "Sly," a little-known 1927 opera by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari - a production directed by his wife, Marta Domingo - naturally the Met agreed, especially since Mr. Domingo would sing the title role. Call it nepotism, if you must. But hasn't Mr. Domingo earned the right to do just about anything he wants to at the Met by now? "Sly" arrived on Monday night, Though hardly some neglected masterpiece, it's a good example of the kind of solid, professional operas that were routinely produced by capable composers for the opera-mad public of the time.

Wolf-Ferrari straddled two cultures. Born Hermann Friedrich Wolf to a German father and Italian mother in Venice in 1876, he added his mother's maiden name to his own, eventually calling himself Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari. An ardent Wagnerite, he attended the music academy in Munich where a conservative composition teacher tried to rid him of modernist tendencies. His first successful operas were lighter works that attempted to reinvent the comic Italian opera tradition for modern times. Wolf-Ferrari eventually fell in with the verismo movement. "Sly" came after a crisis period when he was distraught to see his two homelands at war.

The character of Christopher Sly appears briefly in the [first] scene of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew." Giovacchino Forzano's libretto turns Shakespeare's tinker into a debt-ridden, hard-drinking poet and balladeer, whose songs delight the rowdy crowds at the Falcon Tavern in London.

When the Count of Westmoreland discovers his mistress, Dolly, among the revelers one night, he decides upon an elaborate trick: his servants carry the passed-out Sly to the count's castle, dress him in finery and then pretend, when he comes to, that he is the count, arisen from a long illness. Dolly pretends to be his wife. After the hoax is revealed, poor Sly, locked in a wine cellar, slashes his wrists, visited, alas too late, by Dolly, who actually did love him.

So it's not "Otello." But the story allows Wolf-Ferrari to explore psychological terrain touched upon powerfully by Offenbach in "The Tales of Hoffmann." Sly is a Hoffmann-like character, a poet and dreamer out of place in the world. Hoffmann was one of Mr. Domingo's greatest roles. So his attraction to Sly makes sense.

That said, the opera never convincingly balances the tragic and the comic. It begins grippingly, with a tremulous sustained pedal tone shimmering in the strings as fleeting melodic fragments and wayward harmonies intrude. Once the tavern scene begins, though, the music lacks profile, until Sly, who arrives already drunk, is urged to sing his song about the romantic frustrations of a dancing bear, a wonderfully strange Hoffmann-like aria.

In the next scene, when Sly collapses into bitter loneliness, the opera's major weakness becomes clear: you never understand the source of Sly's despair. If he's just a sloppy drunk, why doesn't someone rush to him and say, "Buck up"? If he's truly in delirium, shouldn't the revelers seem shaken? It didn't help that Ms. Domingo has everyone sit unresponsively around the tavern tables like clumps of lint.

The music gains effectiveness as the tragic dimensions of the story take hold. The final scene in the wine cellar is a tormented soliloquy that Mr. Domingo made the most of. With these performances (Jose Carreras sang the role in Washington), Sly becomes his 119th role. Now 61, Mr. Domingo throws himself into it with his typical energy and charisma and sounds great, singing with vigor, gleaming colors and incisive rhythm.

Though Ms. Domingo, a former soprano, has only been directing opera since 1991, over a long career as helpmate to her husband, she has seen it all. We see it all in this production, which is rather like a grab bag of traditional devices, with sets and costumes by Michael Scott.

Ms. Domingo updates the setting from 1603 to the 1920's. Still, the staging is old-fashioned, favoring stand-and-deliver blocking. There are exotic dancers out of the Arabian Nights for the deception scene at the palace, and crooked walls in the wine

cellar to signify the breakdown of moral order and of Sly's psyche. The lighting has been newly designed by Duane Schuler. Though it gets tiring to watch the action through a cloudy scrim all evening, it does give the show a unified look, with gleaming windows and wine bottles shining through the pervasive, murky greenness.

The soprano Maria Guleghina brings her powerful voice and presence to the role of Dolly, and the baritone Juan Pons makes a suitably huffy count. June Bunnell as the tavern hostess and John Fanning as the actor John Plake, Sly's loyal friend, are very strong. Marco Armiliato conducts an assured and stylish performance.

"Sly" holds few secrets. Hear it once and you've got it. But it was good to hear it once. This was the Met's first presentation of a Wolf-Ferrari opera in 75 years. Don't expect another soon, unless, say, Cecilia Bartoli decides she wants to sing "Il Segreto di Susanna."



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