Operatic careers get no more centrifugal than that of the Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón. He broke out early in roles everybody thought he was born to sing (Alfredo, opposite the white-hot Anna Netrebko, in La Traviata, Salzburg 2005), went on to roles many thought he should not sing (the title role in Verdi’s Don Carlo, Don José in Carmen), came a cropper, and clawed his way back to triumph in such mix-and-match fare as the birdman Papageno, in The Magic Flute (a baritone part), Wagner’s trickster god Loge (Das Rheingold), and Emperor Titus in Mozart’s post-Baroque opera seria La Clemenza di Tito, with Debussy’s doomed prince Pelléas coming up this season at the Vienna State Opera (October 27 to November 5). Also, Villazón runs the Mozarteum, in Salzburg, writes novels that the German literary establishment eats up, and is a RED NOSES “clown doctor” ambassador for Doctors International, bringing compassionate mischief and merriment to hospitalized kids sorely in need of such. And like Enrico Caruso before him, Villazón’s also an inspired caricaturist and doodler. Have I mentioned that he directs? So he does, and La Sonnambula, Vincenzo Bellini’s lacy romantic tragedy with a happy ending marks his Metropolitan Opera debut in that capacity. This is the entertainment in which Luchino Visconti had Maria Callas wear a diamond necklace as the eponymous sleepwalker traversing an Alpine ravine on a rickety beam. “But she’s a simple village girl,” said La Divina (I paraphrase from memory). “No,” said Visconti, “she’s Maria Callas impersonating a simple village girl.” We’re expecting many touches of gossamer fantasy and pathos from Rolando. That, and singing of melting loveliness from his principals. Those would be Nadine Sierra in the title role, and, as her temporarily misled lover Elvino, Xabier Anduaga, latest in a recent streak of bel canto tenors with the grace, line, and timbre to break your heart. —Matthew Gurewitsch
The Met Live in HD transmits La Sonnambula to movies houses worldwide starting October 21.For details, click here
