Joe Volpe was wrong. Michael Tilson Thomas is right.

The Metropolitan Opera's general manager has banished Angela Gheorghiu and
Roberto Alagna for not being nice.  San Francisco Symphony music director
MTT hired them for being exciting singers...  manners be damned (in a city
whose football team employs running backs with an unsavory past).

The alleged Bonnie-and-Clyde of the opera world were showcased tonight at
the gala opening of the 1999-2000 season.  It was a blast, exactly what a
dressy, contributor-pleasing, and yet musically valid event should be.

With a rare and ferocious electric storm raging all over the Bay Area,
there were fireworks inside Davies Hall, instigated and sustained by MTT,
who was in top form, and enjoying himself immensely.  He followed the
opening National Anthemn (*making* the whole audience sing) with an
unscheduled "Dance of the Hours" (just for the fun of it), conducted a
delightfully subtle and colored Respighi "Fountains of Rome," and closed
the concert with a mighty "Guillaume Tell" Overture.

In-between, there were the Alagnas, accompanied by MTT in a powerfully
supportive, transparent manner that would be most welcome across Grove
Street, in the Opera proper.

On this first live encounter with the Alagnas, I saw the problem many
opera fans have with them.  They *look* pop stars, with stunning hair (hers
too), chiseled features, flashing eyes, Ken & Barbie, in love with each
other, with themselves.  Difficult to take them seriously -- especially
when witnessing Gheorghiu's white-fringed hoops on her dress, which would
have been perfectly OK without the Christmas reference.

But.  As soon as Alagna opened his mouth, in the first selection, the love
duet from Act 1 of "Otello," none of that stuff mattered.  A baritonish
tenor without much subtlety or beauty, Alagna is an exciting singer, pure
and simple (the effect, not his singing).  When Gheorghiu blended her voice
-- big and similarly unsubtle, but a true spinto and often thrilling --
with Alagna, this was "opera" in its large gestures and excitement.  You
can quibble over phrasing, musicality, sincerity, but there is no question
about this being "big-time opera," just the kind the Met could use, Mr.
Volpe's sensibilities nothwithstanding.

Gheorghiu's aria from "La Wally" and Alagna's "E lucevan le stelle" were
both fine, but without the excitement they generate together.  And so their
major contribution, the closing scene from Act 1 of "La Boheme," was just
the ticket.  Alagna's voice cracked when he was needlessly over-holding the
high note in his aria, Gheroghiu didn't seem to have a clue about the
simple pleasures of a humble and poor young woman, but again the over-all
impact, the intensity of the performance were as electric as the storm
outside.

Besides, for the serious opera fan, MTT will have Deborah Voigt next week
to sing Barber and Strauss.  SFO should be so lucky.

Janos Gereben/SF
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