Girl crush

Per G : E se creassimo un Secondo Teorema di Da Ponte ?

Ah, guarda, sorella,
se bocca più bella,
se petto più nobile,
si può ritrovar.

I quote the New York Times:

[A girl crush] refers to that fervent infatuation that one heterosexual woman develops for another woman who may seem impossibly sophisticated, gifted, beautiful or accomplished. And while a girl crush is, by its informal definition, not sexual in nature, the feelings that it triggers—excitement, nervousness, a sense of novelty—are very much like those that accompany a new romance.

"Not sexual in nature." Right. Because if I were to confess to how, um… beguiled I was by the sight of Barbara Frittoli licking chocolate off a spoon while sitting on the floor, legs spread, during the Met's Così, I would have to surrender my Heterosexual I.D. Card.*

* [Self-test: Burly boy toys. Fiamma e dardi sembran scoccar. vilaine fille still straight. (*fans self*) What's more, tatas still do absolutely nothing for me.]

That said, surely no human being more beautiful than Barbara Frittoli has ever graced this wretched planet. I spent a fair amount of time during Così testing my powers of telepathy: "Ma, Barbara, che ci facciamo con questi str*nzi di maschietti ? Vieni via con me…" Invano.

Oh, well. There were the consolations of Così, though I liked the show considerably less than my sisters and brothers in blog as well as Messrs. Bernheimer and Davis, two gentlemen by whose opinions I set great store.

First problem: Cheap-and-nasty production, so-so direction. Second problem: Though I went to Così disposed to like it, particularly on the strength of sister Sieglinde's raptures, I found Maestro Levine's way with the score both heavy-handed and rushed. Nonetheless, I looked at my watch some half-dozen times during Act II: The show felt *long* to me. I admit that, among the da Ponte-Mozart operas, I find Così the least suited to a big-house, modern-instruments treatment—though I loved Les Violons du Roy's take on the piece. Mystère.

The cast: I was right. Frittoli's growing flutter is troublesome in this music. But it's a flutter through periwinkle silk, shaded with gunmetal grey and shimmering with peachy-gold and pearls. (Though Frittoli is from Milano, her timbre makes me *see* Venezia.) Like Sondra Radvanovsky but for different reasons—Radvanovsky's huge voice is unwieldy, Frittoli's is simply frayed—Frittoli gives her best in leaping, intricate music, which tapers her sound and brings it under control. (Her command of long phrases is prodigious.) "Per pietà" slayed me and will stay with me forever. Sopranos sometimes make this aria grim and heavy, like those old-time, "mässig" performances of the Bach Passions. Frittoli's Fiordiligi was aware, but not excessively so—Così isn't the Confessions of Saint Augustine, after all. She trailed in her wake the effervescence of youth and sensuality, and the ditziness that comes with the unreal world of privilege. And, yes, she was *surpassingly* beautiful. Who wouldn't love her?

I missed Sir Thomas (with Pertusi, today's finest Don Alfonso, though I've seen him elsewhere) and Magdalena Koženà's Dorabella, which I regret. I loved Nuccia Focile as Despina—nothing beats da Ponte sung by native speakers of Italian—though I would pay real money to learn how this gal manages Elisabeth de Valois and Desdemona. As was the case last season with his Silvio in Pagliacci, I sense that Marius Kwiecien has traded some measure of finesse for volume—always a bad move in vilaine fille's book—but he's still a dandy performer. Matthew Polenzani's soft singing was consistently gorgeous and occasionally effortful, perhaps a function of my having seen the last performance of the run.

P.S. Those of you tempted to write off Alexandra Deshorties based on her lamb-led-to-slaughter Kostanze at the Met: I heard her Fiordiligi at BAM a couple of years ago, and she was superb. I suspect that Così will be well worth revisiting in January.

Comments

[Giorgia]

Io lo dico sempre che la Frittoli, oltre ad essere bravissima, è pure bellissima!
(poi dicono che le donne parlano sempre male delle altre...ma quando mai!)