Javier Camarena and Pretty Yende in Bellini’s I Puritani at the Met
Bel Canto literally means “beautiful singing” and it is hard to imagine singing any more beautiful than the sensational performances Pretty Yende and Javier Camarena offered as a special Valentine to the Met Opera audience Tuesday night in Bellini’s I Puritani.
For Yende, the exciting South African soprano, it was an especially remarkable triumph insomuch as she had only a day to prepare for it. Diana Damrau, who sang the opening of the opera’s revival on Friday, fell ill and had to drop out of the second night. Peter Gelb, the Met general manager, turned to Yende, who had brilliantly partnered with Camarena for three performances of Il Barbiere di Siviglia in January.
It was a stroke of genius. Although she had sung the last performance of Barbiere on Saturday night, Yende took on the challenge. Even before she stepped on the stage, singing the strains of the Puritans’ morning hymn from the wings (she has several offstage vocal entrances), it is clear that Yende would not only rise to the occasion but deliver a memorable Elvira.
By the time she goes mad at the end of Act I – when she thinks her love Arturo has left her – and then delivers a breathtaking Mad Scene at the top of Act II, Yende had the audience rapt, evidenced by the cascade of “Bravas” that reverberated around the house.
But what made the performance even more outstanding was hearing Camarena, the Mexican-born tenor, in the role of Arturo. By now Camarena has secured his place as one of opera’s most thrilling tenors, the mantle of successor to Pavarotti hanging comfortably on his shoulders.
If Camarena and Yende seemed ideally paired in Rossini’s comic opera last month, they were even more so as the lovers in Bellini’s last work. Both are fine actors and the rapport they have onstage together is rare. With love and longing in their eyes, they often sang in each other’s arms and their two great duets together were tender and loving, Yende bringing a girlish exuberance to the role and Camarena a lover’s ardor.
Camarena’s range is quite simply astonishing. He traverses the scale from the lower end of the register to ringing high notes with an ease that almost defies belief. His phrasing is dead perfect, articulating each syllable, and singing pianissimo passages with a delicate fervor.
Yende is no less adept. As she begins to go mad at the end of Act I, she sings as though in a trance, first cradling a bouquet of flowers in her arms, then tearing the petals from them and scattering them about her. And in the Mad Scene itself in Act II she crawls around on the floor, alternately laughing and weeping, her trills and runs flowing naturally with the crystal clarity of water trickling over a brook.
Pretty Yende in the Mad Scene of Bellini’s I Puritani
A solid cast includes the Venezuelan bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni as Giorgio and the Russian baritone Alexey Markov as Riccardo, and their rousing duet “Suona la tromba” makes one want to charge out to the barricades. Maurizio Benini led the Met Orchestra in an excellent reading of the score, with special attention to pacing for Yende, who can’t have had much rehearsal. And the Met chorus is always a standout.
I Puritani was Bellini’s last opera and was such a success it led to two more commissions, but the composer died only months later of dysentery at the age of 33. The action is set in Plymouth during England’s Civil War in the mid-17th century. Charles I has already lost his head but there is still fighting between royalists loyal to the Stuarts and the Puritans (a k a Roundheads) led by Cromwell.
Plymouth is a Puritan stronghold and Elvira is daughter to its commander. She had been promised to Riccardo, a Puritan military officer, but she loves Arturo, who is an Earl and a royalist. Elvira’s uncle, Giorgio, convinces her father to let her marry the man she loves, even though he’s on the opposite side in the war. But then there are, as always in opera as well as in life, more complications.
The widow of Charles I, Queen Henrietta, is being held prisoner in Plymouth and Arturo undertakes to escort her to safety. Thinking Arturo has abandoned her, Elvira goes mad. It doesn’t help her mental stability that no sooner does he return and convince her of his abiding love than word arrives he has been sentenced to death by Cromwell’s Parliament. But then further word arrives that Cromwell has offered amnesty to all who fought for the monarchy and Elvira is her old self again. There is a happy ending, rare in opera as well as in life.
The Met production is some 40 years old and shows its age a bit. A scrim keeps rising and falling at the beginning of each scene, of which there are some half a dozen changes. The soldiers are in Conquistador helmets and carry pikes while the chorus of Puritans look like a colony of American Pilgrims dressed up for the First Thanksgiving.
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