Strauss, Schoenberg, Thomas, Berlioz and Ravel: The MET Orchestra, James Levine, (Music Director and Conductor) Michelle DeYoung (Mezzo-Soprano) Carnegie Hall New York City 20.5.2007 (BH)

R. Strauss: Der Bürger als Edelmann Suite, Op. 60 (1920)

Schoenberg:  "Lied der Waldtaube" ("Song of the Wood Dove") from Gurrelieder (1911, arr. Erwin Stein)

Ambroise Thomas: Overture to Mignon (1866)

Berlioz: La Mort de Cléopâtre (1829)

Ravel: Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé (1911)

 

With soprano Natalie Dessay dropping out with bronchitis, James Levine had some scrambling to do – alas – to shore up what was to be a typically well-constructed program including Ambrose Thomas’ “Mad Scene” from Hamlet.  Luckily the great Michelle DeYoung was available to step in with Schoenberg’s "Lied der Waldtaube" from Gurrelieder and Berlioz’s La Mort de Cléopâtre.  If the resulting array seemed a bit of a patchwork at first, all could be ultimately forgiven.

Solos abound in Strauss’ music from Der Bürger als Edelmann, originally intended to be incidental music for Molière’s play, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.  Here it made a rare opportunity to enjoy some of the orchestra’s principals, pushed into the sunlight.  Most notably, concertmaster David Chan had shimmering work in the “Entrance and Dance of the Tailors” – sheer bliss – and cellist Rafael Figueroa offered some heartbreakingly lovely passages near the end.  Even the Met’s great pianist, Linda Hall, had a few transparent moments all to herself.

It took a good ten minutes to reset the stage for the excerpt from Schoenberg’s massive late-Romantic canvas, with an orchestra probably four times the size of the Strauss.  Towering above all, Ms. DeYoung was amusing, pretending to duck her head as Levine adjusted his sight lines.  But then all earthly concerns seemed to fall gently away as they and the orchestra fell into the composer’s thickly-scored lament, in which the Wood Dove relates the death and funeral of Tove.  In 2001 I heard Levine and the orchestra do the complete Gurrelieder, and the overwhelming power of this fourteen-minute excerpt brought back all the emotions of that afternoon.  Levine fuses a real empathy for the score with ravishing tone from the ensemble, and Ms. DeYoung seemed to match them, flying side by side.  Only occasionally was her soaring instrument slightly obscured, but this is more a comment on the composer than the afternoon’s personnel.

If it’s conceivable, after intermission she was even more impressive in Berlioz’s La Mort de Cléopâtre.  After a stormy opening, meticulously realized by the orchestra, she gazed out into the audience with a baleful stare: this was not a Cleopatra of passive resignation, but one inching towards death as if approaching a fiery final embrace.  Only in the final lines did she lower her eyes, her voice becoming more subdued as Berlioz isolates each vocal syllable to emphasize her ebbing energy.  Ms. DeYoung took every advantage that this showpiece offers, and with some heroic singing not only saved the day but also proved that she is now an artist of the first rank.  As an encore she unfurled a gorgeous "Träume" from Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, in tender contrast to the Berlioz, and any remaining disappointment lurking in the audience was surely snuffed out.

The second half opened with a charming overture to Ambroise Thomas’ Mignon, perhaps originally intended to give the audience a taste of the composer’s language before the excerpt from Hamlet.  If it seemed a little lightweight, it was charming enough and worth hearing, and the orchestra delivered it so dashingly one might think briefly that it had more substance than style.  With substance and style, however, the closing second suite from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé showed what this ensemble can really do.  Levine carefully held some of the energy in abeyance, throwing out sparkling colors along the way, including sensuously rippling woodwinds and strings reaching plateau after breathtaking plateau.  As momentum climbed to the ecstatic conclusion, I found myself again marveling at the sheer sound the group produces in these Carnegie Hall concerts.  My theory is twofold: their relentless schedule (playing five or more operas a week) means the group is about as well-honed as it could be.  And projecting sound in the huge MET house means that when the group plays in a more moderate-sized hall like Carnegie, it has an improbably huge bloom.  Next season the orchestra is doing three concerts here, including one with Valery Gergiev, and I can’t imagine missing a single one of them.

 

Bruce Hodges