Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
After a few years adrift, the Metropolitan Opera has found its sheriff or maybeshepherdis a better word.
The change is worth the frustration.
By the time he capped the evening with the hurtle and swirl of RavelsDaphnis et Chloe Suite No.
(Except for the fact that hes Canadian.)
Conductors cant simply order up excellence or instruct an orchestra to execute a scripted version of their ideas.
They have to rouse musicians intowantingto just them.
Some deploy terror, others flattery, wizardly mysticism, good-natured camaraderie, or a mixture of persuasive strategies.
Nezet-Seguin relies on overt joy and an intense physicality.
Where Levine shrouded it in perfumed miasmas, however, the new boss gave it sinew and bone.
Microdoses of clarity can have big effects in scores like this one, in which the subtleties pile up.
Had it been necessary, she could have carried the scene on her own.
Dialoguesis a story of collective martyrdom, a deeply troubling one.
The opera is also about the impossibility of barricading oneself off from a world consumed by crisis.
Groping uncertainly with the convents discipline, Blanche is clear-eyed and firm with her brother.
I only ask that you think of me as your companion in battle, she says.
For we are both going into battle, each in our own way.
And mine has its risks and perils, just like yours.
Leonard sang Blanche with an astonishing mixture of softness and backbone.
Her voice is purest vicuna: warm, fine, and naturally colored.
