La Sonnambula (Bellini), d'après Zimmerman - Met Opera House

«Yet through his emotionally piercing and sublimely lyrical music Bellini touches on the buried complexities of this flimsy story. You would think an opera director could find contemporary resonances. Amina is an orphan, raised by a single parent, a good-hearted mill owner with ambitions for her daughter. From her opening aria the fragile Amina seems almost disbelieving of her luck at finding a mate as splendid as Elvino. By sleepwalking into the count’s room, is she exposing some subconscious desire? Or sabotaging her happiness?

Instead of trying to take the opera on Bellini’s terms, Ms. Zimmerman places the story in contemporary New York, where we see a small opera company rehearsing “La Sonnambula.” The soprano and tenor stars are romantically involved. As a directorial concept, “This is just a rehearsal” has become almost as clichéd as “It’s all a dream.” So despite its seeming boldness, Ms. Zimmerman’s staging, the first Met production of the work since 1972, comes across as a cop-out.»

«When the Italian bass Michele Pertusi, a sophisticated singer, made his entrance as Count Rodolfo, dressed impeccably in a cashmere coat, I wondered whether Ms. Zimmerman might have simply updated the story and left it at that. The added conceit encumbers the entire production. When Elvino proposes to Amina, is it real or just a rehearsal? That the choristers look on, slightly bored and slightly touched, gives no clue.

Ms. Dessay’s entrance during the first crucial sleepwalking scene is a theatrical coup. From a rear door of the Met auditorium, a bright light pointing the way, she walks down the aisle toward the stage, turning around midway to sing the opening recitative, looking and sounding spectral. Soon, she wanders up to the stage and the waiting count. Yet again the questions come: Is her sleepwalking just a rehearsal? If so, who is directing it?

When the villagers in Bellini’s opera discover Amina asleep in the count’s room, they are scandalized. But why would Amina’s colleagues be so shocked by a little backstage hanky-panky? What kind of urban opera company is this?

The ensemble scene that ends Act I is a meticulously staged and unmotivated muddle. The choristers, riled by the breakup of Amina and Elvino, go crazy and trash the rehearsal room, ripping up their scores, flinging costumes on the floor, knocking over music stands.

Clearly Ms. Zimmerman wants her audience to respond intuitively and not think too hard. But this does not excuse her from having to work out the details of the concept. Paradoxically, I have never been so caught up with the implausible specifics of the libretto. With the disconnect between the story and the staging, I kept thinking, “But that’s not what Amina means.”

Ms. Dessay was not too happy working with Ms. Zimmerman on the Met’s new production of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” last season. But on Monday, when Ms. Zimmerman’s appearance during curtain calls was met with an outburst of lusty booing, Ms. Dessay tried to shush the audience and applauded her director vigorously.

I wish I could say that Ms. Dessay has been thoroughly emboldened by this production. There are wondrous qualities in her singing. Though not large, her voice has such bloom and is supported so securely that it fills the house easily and sends Bellini’s phrases soaring. Her feeling for nuance in the lines and the words is always sensitive.

Still, there is sometimes a tentative quality to her work, as during the opening cavatina, “Come per me sereno,” when Amina expresses girlish contentment in her love through radiant music suffused with sadness. As Ms. Dessay sings this aria, her Amina blithely endures a costume fitting, which makes her expression of romantic bliss come across as insincere.

I seem to be among a minority who find the timbre of Mr. Flórez’s voice a little tight. But he certainly sings Elvino with abundant energy, stylish phrasing and ringing top notes. He won a tumultuous ovation from the audience. Evelino Pidò conducted a nicely subdued account of the score, though in places his halting execution seemed overly deferential to the pacing onstage.

Hanging over the production is the perception that no one seems to believe in this opera. Before the mad scene, Ms. Dessay’s somnambulant character writes the word “aria” on the blackboard, which of course induces a laugh and practically announces, “Do not take this scene seriously.”

The jubilant final ensemble is staged as a dress rehearsal, with everyone in cutesy Swiss villager costumes. Of course they look ridiculous. But with this gesture Ms. Zimmerman sets up a straw man, as if the only choices were either to place “La Sonnambula” in Heidi’s hokey Alpine village or to turn it into a Pirandello play.»

(Natalie Dessay como Amina, Met 2009)

Estreou no Met uma nova produção de A sonâmbula (Bellini), encenada por Zimmerman e protagonizada por Natalie Dessay e Juan Diego Flórez. Dessay e Flórez serão, sem margem para hesitações, os maiores protagonistas contemporâneos de, respectivamente, Amina e Elvino.

Muito recentemente, ambos os intérpretes registaram em estúdio as respectivas leituras e concepções dos personagens titulares da ópera de Bellini: A da Senhora Dessay, pessoalmente, constitui uma das mais disciplinadas e brilhantes Amina que conheço. Já a do Senhor Flórez não deixa recordações felizes - mais pela Amina que o ladeia do que por fragilidades do tenor, concedo…

Desta feita, segundo percebi, o calcanhar de Aquiles da produção foi a encenação de Zimmerman, cujo trabalho se alicerçou no carácter dúbio e ambíguo da ópera – e da figura de Amina.

Há alguns anos, dissertei psicanaliticamente sobre a figura de Amina, que constitui um exemplar primoroso de histeria – das que se viam outrora (no século XIX e inícios do século XX) nos gabinetes dos analistas e agora se extinguem, dando lugar a outras patologias, hélas!

Se o fio condutor da encenação passar por aí, nada tenho a opor, muito antes pelo contrário! Mas a histeria de Amina não deve ser lida como manipulação ou ficção, muito menos com inverosimilhança!

(Flórez e Dessay ossia Elvino e Amina)

Seja como for, só posso expressar a minha profunda inveja pelos felizardos que assistiram a esta magnífica soirée. O resto é conversa!