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Macbeth (***1/4) -- This new Met production transposes Shakespeare's Thane of Cawdor -- and Verdi's massive sisterhood of witches -- to post-World War II Scotland, where the usurping king rides into battle in an army Jeep. For the most part, Mark Thompson's scenic design and costumes avoid jarring eccentricity, preserving the timelessness of Verdi's eternally-suffering peasantry.
We're caressed by surreal weirdness when called for, during the witches' scenes and Lady M's climactic sleepwalk. On the Saturday night that Sue and I attended, there was unforeseen drama. Not only did the switchover from the matinee performance of Un Ballo delay the first-act curtain by a full half hour, two of the principal singers had to be replaced. Dmitri Pittas pinch-hit for ailing Roberto Aronica as Macduff, and Maria Guleghina strode forth to fill the queenly role Maria Callas popularized, replacing Andrea Gruber, who also called in sick.
From what my dad told me later, Guleghina may have been ill herself when she sang Lady M earlier in the season. But on Jan. 5, Guleghina was in top form, at times evoking memories of La Divina herself -- or at least Anna Magnani -- with her lusty intensity. Unfortunately, that meant she wiped the floor with Lado Ataneli, the strapping baritone who sang the title role, oblivious to the rudiments of character development and emotional expression. (Through May 17.)
Mendelssohn and Elgar (***) -- Leading orchestral concerts on two consecutive weeks -- with preparations and performance of the marathon Walkure sandwiched in-between -- Maazel looked understandably enervated at this 11 a.m. repeat of a concert he'd presented the previous evening. The sleek-sounding New York Philharmonic were respectable in the "Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream," generating beauty in the soft passages but little kick in the frolicsome bars.
Guest soloist Viviane Hagner did little to lift the occasion at Avery Fisher Hall with a curiously bland, lackluster reading of Felix's E minor Violin Concerto. After intermission, everyone seemed unaccountably refreshed. Phil's principal French hornist, Philip Myers, thoroughly upstaged Hagner with his performance of Mozart's Horn Concerto #2. The ensemble finally showed its mettle in a wondrously pliant, textured rendition of Elgar's Enigma Variations.
Un Ballo in Maschera (**3/4) -- The Met version laudably restores the action to Stockholm, where Verdi intended it to be (under the title of Gustavus III), rather than Boston, where censors forced librettist Antonio Somma to move it. But Piero Faggioni's misguided production design takes its cue from the grandiosity of Aida rather than the boudoir intrigue of Otello.
Perhaps disheartened by the negative Times review, the singing of this marvelous score was surprisingly moribund. Salvatore Licitra failed to live up to his hype as the amorous Gustavo III (better known as Governor Riccardo), and after his charismatic exploits last season in Eugene Onegin, Dmitri Hvorostovsky delivered a shockingly low-voltage version of Gustavo's jilted advisor, Anckarstrom (Renato).
The one saving grace here, beside the irrepressible beauties of the music, is Stephanie Blythe as the sorceress Ulrica. In her single scene, where she predicts Gustavo's assassination at Anckarstrom's hands, the colossal theatrics actually work. (Through April 23.)
Theater
Cymbeline (***3/4) -- After you overcame your initial suspicions (just why isn't this late Shakespeare play presented here more often?), you would have been encouraged to see the familiar names who conspired to bring this sprawling romance back to life. Phylicia Rashad proved once again that she has serious acting chops as Cymbeline's second wife, the scheming queen who plots against worthy Leonatus to further the cause of her own son, Lord Cloten.
With John Cullum kingly and fallible in the title role, Michael Cerveris noble and credulous as Leonatus, and Martha Plimpton the essence of principled purity as Cymbeline's banished daughter, Princess Imogen, you had a galaxy of stars in the principal roles to light your way. What director Mark Lamos and his stellar cast did especially well -- much better than the Globe Theatre production I saw in London -- was to draw the wide arch of this story, spanning the years and half of Europe, without allowing it to shred apart into incoherence.
The extra punch in this thrilling tale came from Jonathan Cake as the Iago-like Iachimo, who in pure unwarranted malice managed to demolish Leonatus' faith in Imogen. Can it really be five years since the hunky Cake last sizzled on Broadway opposite Fiona Shaw in Medea? I can only hope we get our next slice sooner than that. (Closed on Jan. 6.)
The Glorious Ones (***1/4) -- Lincoln Center has brought yet another fine musical to life, as likely to languish in neglect as the worthiest of its predecessors, Marie Christine and Light in the Piazza. Or perhaps not. Chronicling the theater career of Flaminio Scala, inventor of slapstick comedy, and his misadventures across Europe, this adaptation of Francine Prose's historical novel, with music by Stephen Flaherty and book by Lynn Ahrens, has the beguiling simplicity and directness of The Fantasticks -- with a winsomely silly heart.