La Fille du Regiment at the Metropolitan Opera

Diana Damrau in Laurent Pelly's production of La Fille du Regiment, photographed at San Francisco Opera by Corey Weaver.

Feb 10 - It was blizzarding outside tonight, but it couldn't have been warmer inside the Met. Laurent Pelly's production of Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment was pure, silly fun. The staging is amusing and hyperactive, and while Pelly's direction makes light of the already silly story, he doesn't cheapen it. The focus is drawn to the heartwarming love story and we get to languish on the vocal high points. And with Diana Damrau as Marie and Juan Diego Florez as Tonio leading this performance, there were plenty of vocal highlights to be had.

I especially loved Damrau in her slow arias, “Il faut partir” at the end of Act 1 and “Par le rang et l’opulence” in Act 2. Florez reliably hit the nine high Cs in "Ah mes amis" (drawing a prolonged ovation from the crowd). I did have a some trouble hearing her over the orchestra in the some of the secondary music, but then she pulled out all the stops again for each of the showcase coloratura moment, so I basically forgot my quibbles. Florez seemed to be having fun but didn't put forth his real spark until "Ah mes a mis" and then his big Act 2 aria. Meredith Arwady was sheer delight as the Marquise of Berkenfeld and Maurizio Muraro hammed it up as Sulpice. Kiri Te Kanawa made the most out of her Act 2 appearance as The Duchess Krakenthorp. She has been a much-loved a star soprano in her own right during her younger days, and here she gave a short song - to the audience's delight - even though her role is a mostly spoken one.

I had seen this production first in the Met's movie theater broadcast, with Natalie Dessay as Marie, on whom Pelly originally staged this production with Florez. I came to tonight's performance with pretty high expectations for a hysterical romp through this opera, but this performance was not nearly as hyper as it was with the Dessay (she takes opera hyper to an entirely different level). Tonight it was just silliness instead of a hilarious romp, but I think I'm okay with that - I was still entertained for the whole two hours and forty five minutes. And I much preferred Damrau's voice to Dessay's. Damrau's voice has a heftier weight to it, which served her very well in the slower arias, thought she was still able to show off in the flighty coloratura moments. Especially after her stunning Carnegie Hall concert three weeks ago, I'm firmly in the Diana Damrau fan club. Her upcoming performances as Rossina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia later this month can't be missed.

Best part of the night: my insane student rush ticket, courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera box office. Presumably due to the snow day and subscriber returns, I was seated 9th row, center. While being so close on the floor probably accounted for some of the orchestra-singer imbalances that I mentioned earlier, it was truly stunning when Florez and Damrau came right in front of me and sang for all they were worth. Amazing.

Inset photos: (1) Juan Diego Florez, photo by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera. (2) Juan Diego Florez and Diana Damrau, photo by Cory Weavers/San Francisco Opera. (3) & (4) Curtain call at the Metropolitan Opera, my photos.