The Bartered Bride Review

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Thursday, 24 February 2011 09:49

Written by Jack Angstreich

On the afternoon of February 20th, 2011, at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater (where the acoustics are excellent) at Lincoln Center, I attended an enjoyable performance of Bedřich Smetana's lovely comic opera, The Bartered Bride, a collaboration between theMetropolitan Opera and theJuilliard School, sung in English to a libretto translated by the distinguished poet and critic J.D. McClatchy.

Stephen Wadsworth's production was fundamentally uninteresting as theater but, then, rendering opera truly compelling as a total artwork is a formidable challenge, only rarely accomplished (as, for example, by Robert Wilson, in the Metropolitan Opera's recent version of Lohengrin). (One can only presume that the esteemed early film version of The Bartered Bride by the master cinéaste, Max Ophüls, is artistically the most successful effort in setting this opera.) Benjamin Millepied's choreography here was a pleasure but what there was of it was rather modest in its contribution and in no way imaginatively integrated into the production as a whole.

The true enjoyment in the proceedings lay in Smetana's gorgeous score. Under the direction of ace conductor James Levine, both the Juilliard Orchestra and the singers in the chorus sounded terrific. Vocally, basso Jordan Bisch was quite good in the role of Kecal but the leads Layla Claire and Paul Appleby as the young lovers both had even more beautiful voices and sang wonderfully, if not flawlessly.

The Bartered Bride

Composer: Bedřich Smetana

Librettist: Karel Sabina

Translation: J.D. McClatchy

Conductor: James Levine

Production: Stephen Wadsworth

Choreographer: Benjamin Millepied

Peter Jay Sharp Theater

Juilliard School

Lincoln Center

Tickets: 212-721-6500

www.juilliard.edu

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