Tenor Sails Through High C's in a Histrionic 'Régiment' at the Met

NEW YORK

Of all of the Metropolitan Opera's new productions this season, "La Fille du Régiment" ("The Daughter of the Regiment"), which opened Monday night, was the hottest ticket. Donizetti's opera is a frothy bagatelle famous for a tough tenor aria ("Ah, mes amis" has nine high C's) and, at the Met, its starmaking: It catapulted Luciano Pavarotti to preeminence in 1972, and had not been performed there since he last sang it in 1995. This production by Laurent Pelly, already a hit at Covent Garden and the Vienna State Opera, showcases Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez. It sold out well before opening night.

And Monday's audience appeared to be ecstatic. The applause for Flórez's aria led to an encore that, while not entirely unexpected, went against a seldom-violated Met tradition. He is probably the only tenor of his stature singing today who is capable of producing 18 solid high C's in a single night -- and holding out the last one, thank you very much.

So if you are lucky enough to have a ticket, you will probably enjoy it. Here's why I didn't, as much as I would have liked to.

It's not the fault of the production, which makes the most of a slender piece that, like so many Italian comic operas, has even less substance in its second act than its first. Pelly sets the action of the 1840 opera around World War I; Chantal Thomas's sets are formed of giant period maps molded in the form of the Tirolean Alps (on which Flórez, at one point, lost his footing). There is a lot of attention to detail, from the affecting opening, in which the chorus credibly dreads the incursion of French troops, to the amusing final scene of Act 2, which depicts an aristocratic milieu populated by doddering geriatrics.

And the acting is compelling, particularly from Dessay, who has a reputation as a singing actress and bears out the "actress" part to the hilt. Those who remember the stately Joan Sutherland in the title role of Marie, the girl adopted and raised as a daughter by the soldiers of a French regiment, may not be prepared for the tireless Dessay. She actually looks like a young teenager and plays the character something like Pippi Longstocking, a perpetual tomboy with an erect red braid, attacking the soldiers' ironing and her own high notes with equal rough adolescent energy, and suffering herself to being so manhandled by cast and chorus that one started to wonder if she were capable of delivering a high note without being suspended in midair on her side.

What disturbed me -- heresy though this be -- was the singing. Conventional wisdom has it that Dessay and Flórez represent the acme of light voices today, but I have never enjoyed listening to either of them very much. Flórez is a remarkable singer with solid production, but I am not as transported as many listeners are; I find his sound hard-edged and a little nasal, with a rapid-fire vibrato.

As for Dessay: All of her energetic stage business detracts from her singing, which is not, to my ear, strong enough to carry an evening (I didn't enjoy the Met's opening-night "Lucia," either). On Monday she sounded hoarse for much of the evening. The very top of her voice, with its remarkable high extension, is secure, but below that she sometimes seemed on the brink of faltering, and her spoken lines were delivered in such a way as to augment the hoarseness.

Certainly the casting was impressive. Felicity Palmer was a deluxe presence as the Marquise of Berkenfield, Marie's long-lost mother; Alessandro Corbelli was perfectly fine in the buffo role of Sulpice, a sergeant in Marie's regiment; and Marian Seldes earned big applause, more for her talent than for its being wasted on the shtick of the Duchess of Krakenthorp. Marco Armiliato, in the pit, gave an earnest reading that matched the tone on stage, and the orchestra sounded energetic.

But basically this opera is too silly to survive as an acting vehicle alone. One wants to balance out the familiar operatic routine of laughing at tired jokes -- however nicely reanimated -- with moments when you can luxuriate in over-the-top floods of sound. Flórez did his best to provide them, but the balance was weighted too heavily toward drama, such as it was, for the evening to be quite successful. Fortunately for the Met, my view appears to have been a minority.