The murk and the slime of the first measures of Massenet‘s Werther, which ensued, offered sad if not conclusive evidence of opera’s plunge in the two and a half centuries after Monteverdi. Roberto Alagna made his local debut as Werther: a somewhat talented tenor and something of a heartthrob (as in his self-indulgent if somewhat squally Cavaradossi in the recent film of Tosca); as Werther‘s ladylove Charlotte, Frederica von Stade gave a compelling demonstration of an aging singer making do, with charm and intelligence but not, alas, much voice. At the end there was Alagna again, as a punk-rock-star Otello in, thank God, only one act of Verdi’s great score. I have no space to list the wrongs of his performance (against the decent if colorless Desdemona of Carmen Giannattasio); I can only wonder what must have gone through the head of Placido Domingo, officiating on the podium, as a role that he must surely still own suffered lurid degradation in such undeserving hands.
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