Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – A stellar cast ignites the Met’s cinematic new staging of Verdi’s LA FORZA DEL DESTINO

• By drediman
• March 27, 2024
• No Comments

One of the Metropolitan Opera’s most anticipated offerings during the winter/spring months is its new production of Verdi’s eventful and unabashedly dramatic La Forza del Destino, which is currently concluding performances of its maiden run (the final performance this season is this Friday). Although the new production is not completely without faults — more on that in a bit — the end result was top notch from a music-making perspective.

What makes the performance a triumph is the stellar cast that drives the production. Even without headliner Lise Davidsen — on the night I attended, the role of Leonora was solidly played by Russian soprano Elena Stikhina — I was thrilled by the quality of the singing and the passion on display. Make no mistake, I missed the Norwegian soprano superstar tremendously, but the turns by tenor Brian Jagde and baritone Igor Golovatenko as Don Alvaro and Don Carlo, respective, were scintillating enough to ignite the opera all on their own. Then there was the sultry-voiced mezzo-soprano Maria Barakova as the fortune teller Preziosilla, who all but stole each scene she was in. In the pit, Met maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin brought great fluency and flair to Verdi’s gorgeously moody score.

Staging the Met’s first new production of La Forza del Destino in 30 years is director Mariusz Treliński, whose gives opera an insistently cinematic quality. Occasionally, however, the busily rotating stage gets in the way of appreciating the nuances of the score. Nevertheless, his model dress, war-torn vision brings exciting urgency and forward momentum — apropos for a work that overtly calls out the “force of destiny” that plays out the stories of the opera’s principal characters.

RECOMMENDED

LA FORZA DEL DESTINO
Opera
The Metropolitan Opera
3 hours, 50 minutes (including two intermissions)
In repertory through March 29