{"id":1605326,"date":"2025-12-11T15:17:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T20:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/observer.com\/?p=1605326"},"modified":"2025-12-15T09:20:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T14:20:01","slug":"review-met-opera-revival-andrea-chenier-daniele-rustioni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/observer.com\/2025\/12\/review-met-opera-revival-andrea-chenier-daniele-rustioni\/","title":{"rendered":"The Met’s Crowd-Pleasing \u2018Andrea Ch\u00e9nier\u2019 Is Marred By Miscast Lovers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Igor Golovatenko as Carlo G\u00e9rard. Photo: Karen Almond\/Met Opera<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During the 1950s and 1960s, Giordano\u2019s Andrea Ch\u00e9nier<\/i> was frequently performed at the Metropolitan Opera featuring some of the era\u2019s biggest superstars. However, the opera has been seen less frequently the past few decades due to the lack of genuinely dramatic voices needed to do justice to the opera\u2019s three demanding leading roles. The Met\u2019s current revival<\/a>, its first in nearly a dozen years, features an attractive, HD-ready cast that only sporadically rises to the occasion.<\/p>\n

Based on a true story, Giordano\u2019s 1896 Ch\u00e9nier<\/i> with a libretto by Luigi Illica (co-author with Giuseppe Giacosa of the text for La Boh\u00e8me<\/i> which premiered the same year) embraces some of the ideals of verismo opera in its lushly accompanied emotional arias and duets, though its lovers come from a higher social class than those featured in well-known works by Puccini, Mascagni and Leoncavallo. The poet son of a diplomat, the real Andr\u00e9 Ch\u00e9nier (1762-1794) became entangled in the French Revolution and was executed just three days before the Reign of Terror ended. Maddalena de Coigny, his fictional operatic lover, is the daughter of a Countess; she is also pursued by Carlo G\u00e9rard, one of her mother\u2019s servants who eventually rises to become a Revolutionary leader. The three form a fraught triangle whose vicissitudes are examined in vibrantly soaring music that may ultimately lack the memorably melodic inspiration of other more affecting verismo operas.<\/p>\n

Though it demands three larger-than-life singing actors, the opera is most often embraced as one of the most sought-after spinto tenor vehicles. Throughout the Met\u2019s prime mid-century years under Rudolf Bing, Ch\u00e9nier<\/i> became a frequent golden-age showcase for Mario Del Monaco, Richard Tucker, Franco Corelli and Carlo Bergonzi in the title role with Zinka Milanov, Renata Tebaldi or Eileen Farrell as Maddalena, while G\u00e9rard was frequently played by Leonard Warren, Robert Merrill or Ettore Bastianini.<\/p>\n

The Met\u2019s current Ch\u00e9nier<\/i> by Nicolas Jo\u00ebl with simple though evocative sets and costumes by Hubert Monloup premiered in April 1996 as the last new production mounted for Luciano Pavarotti who played the title role in his final full-length Met opera telecast. Inevitably he was followed by Pl\u00e1cido Domingo (who in 2002 at age 61 was roundly criticized for transposing down much of the poet\u2019s music), then by Ben Heppner.<\/p>\n

This season\u2019s revival no doubt happened because local favorite Piotr Beczala took on the title role for the first time this summer in a concert performance at the Salzburg Festival. Beczala, who had notable successes during the Met\u2019s 2022-23 season starring in new productions of both Giordano\u2019s Fedora<\/i> and Wagner\u2019s Lohengrin<\/i>, has however had a rocky time at Lincoln Center since then. Illness kept the Polish tenor from singing the premiere of Carrie Cracknell\u2019s controversial new Carmen<\/i><\/a>, while during the following New Year\u2019s Eve gala he foolhardily soldiered on through a disastrous Radames in the new Michael Mayer Aida<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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