1998

Netrebko's Susanna Makes Happy `Marriage' - Adler Fellows take time to hit stride

Joshua Kosman, S.F. Chronicle music critic, 
Monday, September 11, 1995

...Only Anna Netrebko, in a magnificent performance as Susanna, started out strong and never let up. The 26-year-old Russian soprano, who made an astonishing U.S. debut here two seasons ago in Glinka's ``Ruslan and Lyudmila,'' demonstrated conclusively that her earlier success was no fluke. [an error occurred while processing this directive] With her distinctive vocal quality -- a blend of sumptuous, throaty tone and elegant clarity -- Netrebko lent sonic splendor to Susanna's every note. Her technical prowess revealed Mozart's lyrical melodies and glittery passagework superbly. And her captivating stage presence, marked by a -- sprightly demeanor and deft comic timing, made the picture complete.

In every ensemble, in fact, it was Netrebko who caught the attention first -- not in a scene-stealing way but with quiet, unobtrusive assurance. Her surprise emergence from the closet in the Act 2 finale capitalized brilliantly on what may be the funniest moment in all of opera; her appearance for the Act 3 sextet gave the scene a much-needed spark.

The crowning glory of her performance, naturally, came in the last act, with a rendition of the ``Garden Aria'' that was both heartfelt and breathtakingly lovely.

Netrebko Just About Perfect: Russian soprano's recital shows dazzling talent

Joshua Kosman's S.F. Chronicle review of the 1998 debut recital at Old First Church in San Francisco

There's no more room or reason for doubt. Anna Netrebko has everything she needs to become a huge operatic star.

The extraordinary young Russian soprano has already given San Francisco Opera audiences two memorable performances: her 1995 U.S. operatic debut in Glinka's ``Ruslan and Lyudmila'' and an ebullient Susanna in last month's performances of Mozart's ``Marriage of Figaro.''

Then on Sunday evening at Old First Church, she set the seal on her triumph with a Schwabacher Debut Recital that was as close to incendiary perfection as an artist or audience can hope to come. Over a decade of regular attendance at this series, Netrebko's was easily the finest recital I have heard.

Here is a singer who simply has it all: a voice of astounding purity, precision and scope, extensive dynamic and tonal range, imagination, insight and wit -- all combined with a dazzling charisma that makes it all but impossible to look away when she is performing.

Yes indeed, I've gone a bit gaga. I defy anyone to have sat through Sunday's recital and remained immune.

Expertly accompanied by pianist John Churchwell, Netrebko offered an all-Russian program -- songs by Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninoff in the first half, followed by Mussorgsky's charming cycle ``The Nursery'' and single selections by Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky and Oles Chishko (the encores were also Russian, an aria from Rimsky-Korsakov's ``Tale of Tsar Saltan'' and Piatrov's ``Gypsy Serenade'').

But if Netrebko bypassed the polyglot assortment that these programs traditionally provide, she found enough variety and individuality within her repertoire to keep the audience spellbound.

Throughout the first half, there were long, rapturous legato phrases, in which strands of pearly notes fused into a single utterance, and rhythmic precision joined with crystalline diction to give each song a distinct character. The Mussorgsky songs, on the other hand, were sparkling comic gems, full-fledged dramatic miniatures with Netrebko playing all the parts superbly.

The first thing one noticed was the amazing luster of her vocal tone -- a luxuriantly rich, velvety sound that never misses the pitch at any point throughout her range.

In the first song of the Rimsky- Korsakov set, ``The Clouds Begin to Scatter,'' the tessitura starts out fairly low, and for a second or two Netrebko came off like a mezzo-soprano, her singing husky and vibrant. But then the melodic line began to soar, and her sound exploded thrillingly into the space.

Those big, momentum-driven climaxes, in fact, are what I remember best from the first half of the recital -- the heart-wrenching burst of wordless grief at the end of Rachmaninoff's ``The Harvest of Sorrow,'' and again at the high point of his ``Oh, Never Sing to Me Again.'' It was stunning to hear so much sound pour forth with such ease and technical control.

For the Mussorgsky cycle, Netrebko scaled things back, opting for exquisite detail rather than broad emotional effect. Like the childish imagination they depict, these songs dart and run all over the place, and Netrebko stayed with them beautifully -- singing an affecting lullaby to a doll, and conjuring up the dialogue between child and nanny with two contrasting voices. Not for a moment -- not even when she stumbled coming onstage -- did Netrebko betray any shortage of self-confidence. She is a true diva, and the fact that she affects a slightly outdated repertory of diva gestures -- crossing her hands languorously across her chest or looking seraphically heavenward -- without seeming silly is only a testament to her star power.

Sunday's recital, by the way, was evidently the first of Netrebko's young and brilliant career. Anyone fortunate enough to have been in attendance witnessed a historic event.

Reviews of Kirov Performances
at the Met in late April & May 1998

extracts from JAMES R. OESTREICH, reviewing Betrothal in a Monastery in the NewYorkTimes, 4/28/98

The Kirov Opera, on the third evening of its festival at the Metropolitan Opera House on Saturday, got down to serious exotica. Well, not so serious: Prokofiev's ''Betrothal in a Monastery'' from 1946 is studiedly lighthearted, designed in part to keep the composer clear of deep Soviet political waters at the time. The plot, after Richard Brinsley Sheridan's ''Duenna,'' itself a parody of comic-opera formula, is a mere wisp....[T]he production, which can be seen next on Saturday, is a delight....

But what is most remarkable is the overall quality and consistency of the cast. Anna Netrebko, a soprano, was splendid as Louisa, singing with limpid, agile tone and carrying the role with a delightful combination of fading innocence and budding worldly wisdom. Her Antonio, Yevgeny Akimov, a tenor, grew stronger and clearer of voice as the evening progressed. Vasily Gerello, a baritone, sounded resplendent from the start as Ferdinand, and Marianna Tarassova, a mezzo-soprano, proved a good match for him as Clara....

Valery Gergiyev, the inexhaustible moving force behind the company, conducted. The ensemble, a little loose at the outset, settled into a generally smooth performance. The chorus was excellent: the men especially, in the monks' chorus. The orchestra put its dark sonorities to good use: again, especially in that chorus, with its delightful perversion of a Strauss orchestration....

Daniel Kessler (dkessler.ppp@bc.cybernex.net), posting a review of Bethrothal in a Monastery to the newsgroup rec.music.opera on 4/26/98:

Valery Gergiev is known to be ‘big' on Prokofiev and perhaps it is he who has talked the Met into doing Prokofiev's THE GAMBLER in an upcoming Met season. You could also say that Gregiev made a persuasive case for Prokofiev's BETROTHAL IN A MONASTERY last night as seen on the Met stage as given by the Kirov Opera....

Soprano Anna Netrebko was the high-spirited Louisa out to trick her dim-witted father. Years ago, the bass-baritone, Fernando Corena played Louisa's unattractive and buffoonish rich fish merchant suitor to whom Louisa is engaged and Cornea was meant to be very fine in this buffo part in an Italian translataion. Netrebko's voice carried well in the house. However, her soprano can, on occasion, sound nasal....

extracts from Anthony Tommasini, reviewing the Kirov Gala (4/23/98) in the New York Times on 4/25/98:

Most gala concerts tend to be celebratory fund-raisers with too many good will speeches and musical chestnuts and too few performances of substance.

Not so the three-hour gala on Thursday night, when the Kirov Opera commenced its three-week residency at the Metropolitan Opera House. This remarkable company from St. Petersburg is to present 17 performances of four Russian operas from its repertory....

But the conductor, Valery Gergiyev, the Kirov's visionary artistic director, used this gala as a chance to demonstrate his company's surprising range, and in a way the most interesting performances were of music from the Italian repertory one does not associate with the Kirov.

There was a gripping account of the entire final scene from Act II of Verdi's ''Otello,'' in which the soaring tenor Vladimir Galouzine as Otello and the vibrant baritone Nikolai Putilin as Iago vanquished these daunting roles. Later, Mr. Galouzine returned for a ''Nessun Dorma'' from ''Turandot'' that brought down the house. Italianate legato phrasing was not the hallmark of the dusky-voiced soprano Galina Gorchakova's singing in ''Sola, perduta, abbandonata'' from Puccini's ''Manon Lescaut,'' but the prima donna's performance was charismatic and affecting....

Olga Guryakova, a splendid soprano, and Larissa Diyadkova, a molten-voiced mezzo, were riveting in an intense duet from ''Mazeppa.'' Anna Netrebko, a gifted coloratura soprano, just 26, gave a scintillating account of a bel canto-like cavatina from ''Ruslan and Lyudmila.''

Mr. Gergiyev kept changing the program until two days before the gala, so this was more an opportunity to hear the Kirov Orchestra's versatility than its precision. But Mr. Gergiyev has built the orchestra into a formidable ensemble with a sound characterized by deep bass support, penetratingly clear high string tone and winds that emphasize reedy poignancy

Colorful `Betrothal' Fulfills Its Promise
S.F. Opera staging, music, singing strong

Joshua Kosman's S.F. Chronicle review of the 1998 San Francisco production of Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery:

...Soprano Anna Netrebko brought her exquisite tone, easy musicality and considerable stage allure to the part of Don Jerome's daughter, Louisa, and tenor Evgeny Akimov made a heroic debut as Don Antonio, her romantic if impoverished lover...

Symphony's `Messiah' Needs Some Dusting Off

12/21/1998 - Chronicle

2002

Anna brushes up her Shakespeare in Philadelphia
in Bellini's version of Romeo and Juliet (2002)

link to Mark Burstein's entertainingly over the top account (in Acrobat pdf format)

2003

Anna sings Lucia in Los Angeles to the usual critical acclaim

Nov 22, 30, Dec 4, 7(m), 12, 14(m), 17, 20(m), 2003

From LA City Beat, Nov. 26, by Donna Perlmutter

...[A] huge talent Angelenos [are] lucky to see again is Anna Netrebko, the Russian soprano blitzing the charts right now. Last Saturday, this gorgeous young thing – discovered by lady-killer Kirov chief Valerie Gergiev while she scrubbed floors at the Maryinsky Theater (a story she calls “boolsheet Cinderella”) – took on the title role in L.A. Opera’s Lucia di Lammermoor and knocked out even the most jaded buffs. (Performances continue through December 20; visit Losangelesopera.com or call 213-972-8001.)

Here was the real, rare thing – a singing actress whose vocal gifts alone could stir struggling record companies to action, but who also possessed inordinate theatrical flair and finesse. Director Marthe Keller (of movie fame) clearly had a major hand in shaping Netrebko’s Lucia – the fragile emotions leading to madness in Donizetti’s florid, gently tragic melodrama could be traced from her first appearance on stage.

This lyric soprano unleashed a mad scene in which she laughed corrosively and danced and twirled and swooned while pouring out bell tones and tossing off exquisitely chiseled coloratura within a whole dynamic and rhythmic range. When intimate moments loomed, she wasn’t afraid to sing super softly, and she found all manner of interpretive shadings within a single musical phrase.

Joshua Kosman reviews the LA Lucia for the San Francisco Chronicle:

... to sing Lucia is to stake a claim to full-fledged diva status, and Netrebko gave every indication that it's a role she's well equipped to fill.

Just from a technical standpoint, the mad scene was a magnificent display. Netrebko's coloratura was note-perfect, each melodic phrase and glittering roulade precise and full-bodied. Her dynamic range was remarkable, from a piercing fortissimo to the merest whisper, and she exploited it all for dramatic effect. At one unforgettable juncture, she opened her mouth wide but let only the smallest sound escape -- a virtuoso gesture of deep-rooted horror....

For full text, click here.

Anna's opening night LA performance in Lucia on November 22, 2003, was jaw-dropping. I cannot improve on Ms. Perlmutter's or Kosman's words above. 

My wife and I went back stage afterward, and waited (with her new manager) for her to come out of her dressing room. After a visit from a make-up man with a thousand brushes, she emerged in the most extraordinary outfit: about the shortest skirt I've seen and a strapless corset top held together in the back with lacing that left a nice wedge of flesh visible. You'll have to take my word for it. I'd used up the last juice in my camera battery taking long distance photos during the performance, none of which turned out very well. 

She was friendly but eager to get to the post-opening night party. She flew off with a wave and a cry, "Now to get drunk!" Placido and Marthe Keller were also backstage. We talked briefly with the gracious Marthe, who fully credited Anna for an inspired interpretation of her (Marthe's) choreography and direction. I missed the biggest photo-op of my life, failing to get Anna, Placido and Marthe in one frame.

Let's be categorical:  You have not seen or heard a mad scene matching this one.

--PW

 

 

Mark Burstein's unbridled appreciation of Anna as Lucia

2004

Opera diva turns in a recital with flair
Anna Netrebko was out of her element, but still stunning

After keeping San Francisco audiences waiting for so long, Anna Netrebko delivered the goods on Monday night, with interest. The extravagantly gifted Russian soprano finally returned to the Bay Area to give her twice- postponed recital in Herbst Theatre, and the result was worth every minute of anticipation.

Accompanied at the piano by Donald Runnicles, Netrebko offered a cannily chosen program of music by Mozart, Strauss and Rachmaninoff. She sang it with every ounce of vocal brilliance and emotional fervor at her disposal.

This was music calculated to flatter her musical endowments -- her darkly piercing vocal tone, impeccable precision and interpretive urgency -- and the dazzling glamour that attends her very presence. Not since her unforgettable Schwabacher Debut Recital in 1998 has Netrebko's musical sorcery been available with such intimate directness.

At the same time, it was clear throughout the evening that the song recital is not a form with which Netrebko feels fully at home. She seemed intermittently ill at ease -- conferring midstream with Runnicles about the order of the program and even some musical details, and relying on stock gestures and expressions when a dramatic point seemed unclear to her.

No, Netrebko is a creature of the operatic stage -- that's her native turf, where all the bloom and intensity of her artistry come forth. And the more operatic Monday's program became -- the more she could immerse herself into a dramatic character -- the more confident and magnificent her singing sounded.

The contrast was evident in the very first pair of Mozart numbers. The early concert aria "Per pietà, bell'idol mio," K. 78, led off the program in a rendition marked by precisely turned phrases but a degree of emotional stiffness that went beyond the conventional sentiments of the aria.

But then, in a last-minute switch, Netrebko launched into "Padre, germani, " Ilia's opening aria from "Idomeneo" (that opera, in 1999, marked her first collaboration with Runnicles). The difference was striking and instantaneous. Before our eyes and ears, Netrebko became the anxious, tormented princess, giving voice to a surfeit of emotion in exquisitely shaped melodic lines.

The San Francisco Performances recital was put off twice -- once a year ago because of a health emergency and again in November when Netrebko underestimated the demands of her Los Angeles Opera debut in the title role of Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor."

Now, back in town to sing Musetta in the San Francisco Opera's June production of Puccini's "La Bohème," she took the opportunity to finally make good. Clad in two contrasting outfits -- a silken floral number followed after intermission by a flounced black sheath dress -- she looked and sounded every inch a diva.

The Strauss set began with another substitution, this one unannounced ("Zueignung" in place of "Befreit") and continued with a series of exuberantly shimmering performances. Netrebko lent feathery grace to "Ständchen" ("Serenade"), caught the still-voiced lyricism of "Morgen" ("Tomorrow") and concluded with a soaring account of "Cäcilie."

But her most gripping performances came after intermission, with a group of nine Rachmaninoff songs done with almost irresistible fervency and depth. From the melancholy of "I fell in love for my sorrow," with its touching finale vocalise, to the gut-wrenching anguish of "Oh, do not sing to me," Netrebko embodied each song's expressive world with extraordinary vividness.

"Discord," a sprawling, quivering explosion of raw emotion, made a final tour de force. There were encores by Delibes (the vivacious "Les filles de Cadix") and Puccini (a soulful "O mio babbino caro" from "Gianni Schicchi").

Monday's recital was a splendid event, but I don't expect we'll hear much more of Netrebko as a recitalist. Her true home, over at the War Memorial Opera House, is calling.

San Jose Mercury review of San Francisco recital, May 24
© 2004 Mercury News and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.

Netrebko in top form

By Georgia Rowe
Special to the Mercury News

The third time was definitely the charm for Anna Netrebko, who finally made it to her San Francisco Performances recital Monday evening at Herbst Theatre. Postponed twice due to illness in 2003, the event turned out to be worth the wait.

In the last few years, the Russian soprano has come into her own, and Monday's scintillating recital -- accompanied by San Francisco Opera music director Donald Runnicles -- offered impressive evidence of her musical gifts. Singing a program of songs and arias by Rachmaninoff, Mozart and Richard Strauss, with encores by Delibes and Puccini, Netrebko's ravishing vocalism, dramatic flair and charismatic stage presence added up to an enchanting evening. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Netrebko is one of the music world's most glamorous women, a dark-haired beauty who looked ready to pose for the cover of Vogue.

Yet what was most remarkable about this appearance was the singer's assurance and ability to communicate the essence of the repertoire. The dramatic intelligence that has fueled Netrebko's Bay Area opera performances -- she made an unforgettable S.F. Opera debut in 1995 as Lyudmila in Glinka's ``Ruslan and Lyudmila'' and has returned to the company numerous times since then -- was applied with keen focus in this recital. She projected a sense of command, and the tonal vagaries that have plagued some of her previous outings here seem to have vanished for good

She started with Mozart's concert aria, ``Per pieta, bell'idol mio,'' singing with soft, silvery tone and elegant musical line. The next selection, Ilia's ``Padre, germani, addio'' from Mozart's ``Idomeneo,'' was thrilling, with Netrebko eloquently expressing the depth of the character's anguish. The selection of Strauss songs was well-chosen and dynamically performed.

After intermission, Netrebko sang two sets of songs by Rachmaninoff. She made a particularly persuasive case for this repertoire, sounding utterly at home in the language and idiomatic phrasing of the texts. ``Lilacs'' was a vibrant example of her ability to conjure an entire world in the course of a few minutes; ``Never Sing to Me Again'' came across as a potent musical drama.

Bay Area audiences can catch Netrebko when she returns in June, appearing as Musetta in the S.F. Opera's ``La Boheme,'' running June 5 through July 2. For tickets and information, see www.sfopera.com.

A sexual dynamo powers S.F. Opera's 'La Boheme'

Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic

Monday, June 7, 2004

There is one bright spot amid the drab, workaday revival of Puccini's "La Bohème" that opened at the War Memorial Opera House on Saturday night, and her name is Anna Netrebko.

Could anyone be surprised at that?

For as long as she's been appearing at the San Francisco Opera -- ever since her revelatory 1995 U.S. debut in Glinka's "Ruslan and Lyudmila" -- this magnificently gifted singer has favored local audiences with performances of unforgettable beauty and insight.

Her artistry has crowned great evenings (especially in little-known repertoire by Prokofiev and Rimsky-Korsakov) and done its part to salvage weak ones. Saturday's was in the latter category.

Not that Netrebko had a particularly ample opportunity to shine. As Musetta, the sexual dynamo with a heart of gold, she had just one big moment in the spotlight, the Café Momus scene in Act 2 with her showstopping waltz "Quando m'en vo'."

But in those few moments, the performance took on a whole new degree of theatrical and musical vividness. Netrebko's powerful, pure soprano -- still silvery in its basic coloring but growing darker and more luxuriant with each passing year -- soared above the orchestra in cascading, precisely shaped phrases.

And her depiction of Musetta's emotional plight was sketched in unnervingly specific detail. Temporarily on the outs with her boyfriend, the painter Marcello, Musetta shows up on the arm of a decrepit old sugar daddy and proceeds to goad Marcello into confessing that he still loves her.

Her bountiful erotic charms are the main weapon, of course. But in Netrebko's version there was also a petulant reproach over the entire spectacle, as if to say, "Look what you've driven me to" -- an irrational charge that any lover could recognize.

All the time she was tempting Marcello, her own anxiety and unhappiness came closer and closer to the surface, finally exploding in a sprint across the stage and a leap into her lover's arms.

Nothing else in the performance -- largely undercast and conducted with unwonted sluggishness by Music Director Donald Runnicles -- came close to that level of vocal or dramatic majesty.

Mark Lamos' production, so full of vivacity and luster when it premiered at the Orpheum Theater in 1996, becomes blurrier and more pallid with each successive revival. The current outing, staged by Sandra Bernhard, seems content to shuffle the players around the stage; even in the scenes of the Bohemian high jinks, wit and energy are in short supply.

Nor did the vocal performances make up for the lack. Soprano Elena Prokina, a touchingly intimate Tatiana in her 1997 debut in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin," seems to have gained vocal heft at the expense of delicacy since then.

As the doomed seamstress Mimì, her singing sounded blunt and labored, although she used those qualities to produce a potent torrent of emotion in Act 3. Her tendency to sing flat throughout didn't help matters.

Tenor Frank Lopardo was her beloved Rodolfo, in a charmless performance marked by a weirdly aggressive edge -- this was a poet modeled more on Charles Bukowski than on Keats or Shelley. And although Lopardo mustered a fluent legato when he needed to, his strained, bottled-up vocal tone robbed much of the role of its brightness.

American baritone Scott Hendricks made a solid but not very memorable company debut as Marcello, with a robust but rather colorless sound and a way of melting into the background in ensembles. His best singing came in the Act 4 duet, "Ah, Mimì, tu più non torni," even in the face of Lopardo's demonic chewing of the scenery.

Bass Freidemann Röhlig gave a wonderfully resonant and thoughtful performance as the philosopher Colline, former Adler Fellow Brad Alexander was an underpowered Schaunard, and Peter Strummer reprised his trademark turns as Benoît and Alcindoro. The Opera Chorus struggled a little in the big crowd scene of Act 2.

In the end, this was Netrebko's night, just as so many before it have been. Next time around they need to find something more for her to do.

S.F. Chronicle review of Boheme

Anna is in the recent Disney movie, Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, which opened in theaters August 2004. She plays herself and sings a bit of the aria Sempre libera at the engagement party. Except for Anna, the movie is god-awful, and her appearance is very brief.