TheLittleSongbird
I love opera, and am very fond of Bellini's music. La Sonnambula's story may be slight but the music is absolutely beautiful. This production may not be to everyone's tastes, however I personally found it a riot and imaginatively staged.The production updates the opera to a modern setting-something that has been done with mixed results, this production is an example of this working, while the 2005 production of Don Carlos with Ramon Vargas is an example of one that doesn't-, with the set looking like a large upper story studio room with large windows and the story reading like a play within a play, however while I understand why people mayn't consider this change adding much to the opera, it didn't detract from my enjoyment of it.Besides, the sets do look great and the costumes too. Natalie Dessay especially looks radiant and adorable. The take on the story is fresh, with many scenes managing to move me, but there is never not enough room for some touching moments too, as proved with Non Credea Mirati, where a tear can be seen glittering on Dessay's cheek.The sets and costumes are given full advantage by some very effective night and day lighting, and the picture quality and camera work is consistently excellent. The orchestra play the beautiful score nimbly and stylistically, and the conducting as often seen with these Met productions is done with precision.Staging is lively and wittily done. I loved the Chorus' coming and going in their civilian clothes, and as a Chorus they sing with good intonation, style and balance, while the climatic sleepwalking scene and Non Credea Mirati serve as the most effectively staged scenes of the production. Dessay walking through the audience was also a nice touch.The performances are terrific. Natalie Dessay is not quite as wondrous vocally as it was when she was doing the likes of Olympia and Orphelie and I can see where people are coming from when people say that they feel that her interpretations are too original. That said, I loved her here as Amina, she is always such fun to watch, she looks adorable and the colouratura and technique still amazes.Juan Diego Florez is playing a somewhat two-dimensional character in the name of Elvino, however his acting is done with total conviction, he has very good technique and he hits his notes with effortless ease. The romantic chemistry between Dessay and Florez, particularly in their duets together is most evident and added a furthermore heart-warming element to it.The support cast also meet expectations, especially Jennifer Black who is wonderfully conniving as Lisa. That is not to dispute Michele Pertusi either as the Count, who gives his usual solid performance.All in all, very entertaining if not for all. 10/10 Bethany Cox
Gyran
Opera directors must have decided that the plot of La Sonnambula is so silly that it can never be performed in its proper period. The only other production of this opera that I have seen was set at an Edwardian picnic. For the Met's new production, director Mary Zimmerman sets the opera in a rehearsal room, so that it looks as though we are seeing a rehearsal of the opera with the principals and chorus in their everyday clothes. I'm not convinced by this approach. Obviously 19th century audiences found the idea of sleepwalking quite sexy, the idea that a young woman might wander into someone else's bedroom without knowing what she is doing. We are more blasé about sleepwalking today but it still pops up as a defence in murder trials where husbands claim to have strangled their wives in their sleep.What really matters is that it gives us the chance to hear the world's two leading bel canto singers at the height of their powers. Juan Diego Florez and Natalie Dessay are simply sensational and, unusually for bel canto, they get the chance to show off their ability in a series of duets. I have never heard such precisely phrased duet singing apart, perhaps, from the Everly Brothers.Mary Zimmerman's staging is most effective in the sleepwalking scenes. In the first, Natalie Dessay enters at the back of the theatre and wanders through the audience. In the second she walks along the window-ledge on the outside of the rehearsal room. Then, a section of the stage moves forward so that she is suspended over the orchestra pit to sing the sleepwalking aria which is the climax of the piece.I have been watching the Met chorus all season so it was a treat to see them in their everyday clothes without wigs and costumes. Finally, everyone does dress up in their Swiss villager costume for a sort of parody of a traditional production. Natalie Dessay is tossed in the air as she hits one final spectacular high note. I was walking on air too.
