That Gluck, halfway between the baroque revival and the Mozartean standards,
is on a roll is not news. Orfeo is performed all over the place
— it always has been — but in more and more headline-grabbing
productions. IphigÈnie en Tauride has become almost a repertory item
— Susan Graham does it everywhere, and other singers are taking it up. I
heard IphigÈnie en Aulide in Rome last March (in a production borrowed
from La Scala), Armide was recently staged in Berlin, and
Alceste will be given in Santa Fe this summer with Christine Brewer.
Paride ed Elena is a workout — essentially two singers in a
long, aria-by-aria, seduction — so it’s not surprising that that
remains a rarity.
In Alceste, Gluck uses the chorus in his stately way to set the
scene in his three acts, creating a mood (somber in Act I, joyous in Act II,
hellish in Act III) against which the principals create the drama by vivid
contrast. In Act I, Alceste resists the helpless sorrow of the people of
Thessaly, bewailing the imminent death of their king — she will take
action, offering herself to death in her husband’s stead. In Act II, the
rejoicing of the populace is again a setting for Alceste, when she admits to
her husband what she has done, plunging everyone into mourning yet again. In
Act III, the raucous Hercule breaks the spirit of the Underworld denizens and
saves Alceste. The chorus is thus fundamental to the action by creating a
musical backdrop against which the individual may become heroic. The mass and
weight and careful diction of the Collegiate were impressive, though the many
solo lines spread among them (Gluck’s idea: so we can take them for
individual inhabitants of Thessaly in a national crisis and not just anonymous
masses) did not sound of proper operatic caliber.
Alceste usually gets trundled out for some aging, rather placid grande dame
— few characters ever lose their cool in Gluck, and Alceste’s
emotions are grandly presented — seething beneath a surface of good
manners. Technical control and subtle acting are cues for the part —
Alceste does not have a huge orchestra to contend with, but she must express
her despairs and her resolve with dignity and economy.
Deborah Voigt’s voice was once a technical marvel, though seldom
expressive. For whatever reasons (and she was singing through a cold on this
occasion), she is no longer fully in control of her voice. Phrases droop from
pitch or blare forth undirected. Her famous aria at the conclusion of Act I,
“DivinitÈs du Styx,” was sung with full technical command but
slight feeling; her quieter, more introspective aria at the opening of Act II
was a rare, affecting moment when the singer was playing the part, not simply
vocalizing. Voigt has been a fine Cassandre in Les Troyens, a role
that would seem to offer a key to a fine Alceste, but on this occasion the
music got away from her.
The singer who brought down the house was Vinson Cole, a veteran called in
as AdmËte when Marcello Giordani had to cancel. I heard Cole sing Gluck twenty
years ago, in the French version of OrphÈe, where he was suave,
yearning, thrilling, far more effective in the part than the altos who usually
sing it (in the Italian version). His AdmËte was a stunner: the voice so
youthful (belying his white hair), so liquid, so lyrically expressive that the
opera’s focus became his anguish rather than Alceste’s sacrifice.
Richard Zeller made a good roustabout Hercule, Kyungmook Yim was an exciting
Apollon (AdmËte’s friend in high places), and Ryan Kinsella effective as
the oracle who decrees the substitution possible. Manahan, in the pit, was
always dignified but never boring — the proper style for Gluck.
John Yohalem
image=http://www.operatoday.com/content/mort_alceste_detail.jpg
image_description=Detail from La Mort d’Alceste ou L’HÈroÔsme de l’amour conjugal by Pierre Peyron, 1785 (MusÈe du Louvre)
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product_title=Christoph Willibald Gluck: Alceste
product_by=Alceste: Deborah Voigt; AdmËte: Vinson Cole; Hercule: Richard Zeller; Apollon: Kyungmook Yum; L’Oracle: Ryan Kinsella; Evandre: Gregory Hostetler. Collegiate Chorale and New York City Opera Orchestra, conducted by George Manahan. At the Rose Theater.
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