The enduring appeal of “Norma” has long exceeded the ability of opera companies to recruit singers equal to the stringent vocal demands of this bel canto classic, particularly those demands made on sopranos who dare to take on the murderously difficult title role.
Little wonder, then, that Vincenzo Bellini’s challenging masterpiece has been out of the Lyric Opera repertory for 20 long years.
Now that Sondra Radvanovsky has taken her place as today’s Norma of choice in major opera houses around the world, Lyric moved quickly to bring back the opera as a starring vehicle for the alluring, Berwyn-born soprano, as the eponymous Druid priestess.
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Radvanovsky earned the clamorous ovations she received Saturday night at the season’s first performance of “Norma,” in a production not previously seen in Chicago. The diva sent jolts of vocal electricity through the Civic Opera House with a formidable assumption in the tradition of dramatic-soprano Normas going back to Maria Callas in Lyric’s very first fall season.
Nor did Lyric skimp in its casting of the other figures in the opera’s fateful triangle — mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as Adalgisa, Norma’s young acolyte and romantic rival, and tenor Russell Thomas as Pollione, the Roman proconsul who abandons Norma and their two children after falling heedlessly in love with Adalgisa.
With Italian conductor Riccardo Frizza, a first-rate Italian opera specialist making a welcome Lyric podium debut, the performance boasted more than enough vocal thrills, elegant orchestral playing and committed choral singing to make up for a middling production.
Chicago is the final stop for director Kevin Newbury’s “Norma” roadshow, which has already made the rounds of co-producing companies in San Francisco, Barcelona, Spain, and Toronto, invariably with Radvanovsky as the titular priestess. (A DVD of the production’s 2015 incarnation at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu was recently released by C Major.)
Norma is the most recent bel canto heroine the fearless American diva has added to her repertory in recent seasons. She portrayed all three of Donizetti’s Tudor queens last season at the Metropolitan Opera, where she is due to open the 2017-18 season in a new production of “Norma” that was to have starred Anna Netrebko, who has shied away, for now, from singing Bellini’s soprano-killing heroine. Radvanovsky’s most recent Lyric appearances were as Anne Boleyn in Donizetti’s “Anna Bolena” in 2014, also staged by Newbury.
Her somewhat grainy vocal timbre and occasionally harsh high notes may not be to all tastes, and some of her coloratura was ragged Saturday. But the voice had impressive carrying power, even when the singer fined it down to the wispiest of pianissimos (her glory moments as far as I’m concerned). Her singing bespoke the command of long legato phrases, the vocal stamina and flexibility, one looks for in a Norma.
Decked out in a long blond wig and gauzy beige and peach robes, the statuesque singer was noble and affecting as the charismatic spiritual leader whose public and personal personas are fatally at odds. Her portrayal turned on a dime from tenderness to wrath to determination in the course of a 3 1/4-hour opera that offers prima donnas scarcely any chance to rest their voices.
A resourceful singing actress, Radvanovsky was alive to the dramatic impact of every scene, notably in Norma’s meltingly lyrical duets with Adalgisa and the priestess’s fiery confrontations with her faithless lover. Her prayer to the moon goddess, “Casta diva” (sung in the original key), was spellbinding in its dynamic finesse and slowly gathering intensity of expression, even if others have sung this touchstone aria more luminously. She was most affecting in “Dormono entrambi,” in which the anguished Norma contemplates killing her children in their sleep to avenge herself on the fickle Pollione.
Radvanovsky’s partnering of DeShong in the duet “Mira, o Norma” (also performed as printed, without transposition) also was beautifully achieved, as the novice urged the priestess to take pity on her children. Adalgisa’s tessitura encompasses contraltolike depths and soprano heights, a huge vocal compass that was at DeShong’s ready command. What’s more, her velvety, focused and pliant vocalism supported a credible characterization. It was good to have one of the Ryan Opera Center’s star alumni back at the company that launched her career.
The soprano and mezzo were strongly matched by Thomas’ ardent proconsul. The American dramatic tenor mustered the requisite clarion declarations, and he sent frissons of excitement through the theater when he simply stood back and let his firm, hefty voice rip. Once past an entrance aria marred by uncertain pitch and a flubbed high note, he softened and colored the sound most becomingly for the duet in which Pollione implored Adalgisa to run away to Rome with him.
Andrea Silvestrelli’s coarse, growly husk of a bass carried well enough over the orchestra, but that was about all that distinguished his performance as the Druid chief Oroveso. Third-year Ryan Center members Hlengiwe Mkhwanazi and Jesse Donner were fully in the vocal picture as Norma’s confidante Clotilde and Pollione’s friend Flavio, respectively.
With Lyric newcomer Frizza at the helm, no musical gesture was perfunctory, no interpretive decision ill-chosen. The Italian conductor’s marshaling of musical details as they related to dramatic expression — the color and duration of orchestral chording, for instance — was typical of his thorough understanding of Bellini’s score. His seamless pacing and rhythmic exactitude went far toward countering static moments in the staging.
Such was the quality of the orchestra’s responses to Frizza that Bellini’s often-criticized orchestration didn’t feel insipid at all. Director Michael Black’s chorus pitched in with conspicuous enthusiasm.
Alas, it was hard to work up much enthusiasm for the production.
In his director’s note, Newbury stressed the links between his staging and pop culture fantasies such as “Game of Thrones.” David Korins’ unit set was a grim, gray Gaul whose massive iron gates afforded occasional glimpses of the sacred grove where “Norma” is supposed to take place. A wintry tree, horizontally slung, was raised and lowered. Norma and Oroveso addressed the populace from atop a cattle car perched atop a trolley. A giant wooden bull served as a Trojan horse for the Druid warriors and as a funeral pyre for our heroine and her repentant lover. There was lots of Druid sign language for the choristers.
Jessica Jahn’s costumes — charcoal-gray for the tattooed Gauls, red-accented black leather for the Romans — reinforced the “Game of Thrones” ambiance.
But nobody goes to a performance of “Norma” because of the production. This show demands attention for the dramatic and vocal pyrotechnics of Radvanovsky, the strong support of DeShong’s Adalgisa and Thomas’ Pollione, and the stylish conducting of Frizza. Lyric’s Bellini team is as good as it gets in today’s opera world.
Lyric Opera’s production of Bellini’s “Norma” continues through Feb. 25 at the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive; $17-$349; 312-827-5600, www.lyricopera.org.
John von Rhein is a Tribune critic.
jvonrhein@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @jvonrhein
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