....or a soldier!

As my daughter Gracie has progressed through her teen years I have tried very hard not to overload her with parental advice on the basis that if I were to give her too much of it she would ignore or forget it. So I have restricted myself to three things which I have tried to drill into her head in the hope they will stick:

• Pick your battles (you can't fight everything and hope to win - be selective),
  
• Know when to quit (don't waste your energy when the fight is really over - listening Hillary?) and most important of all...
• Don't date a drummer ('nuf said, I think).

Had we lived 150 years ago I would probably have substituted 'soldier' for 'drummer'. No daughter of mine is going to become known as The Daughter of The Regiment if I can help it! And thus to what I am here to write about today.

For the last few weeks I have been very much looking forward to this Saturday's Met simulcast of Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment. The whole bel canto style of opera appeals to me a great deal and the role of Tonio, the said daughter's aspiring lover, is to be sung by Juan Diego Florez. When I saw the Met production of The Barber of Seville last season I became an instant JDF fan when he brought the house down with his final aria 'Cessa di più resistere' (side bar: Rossini stole this aria from himself and had Cenerentola sing it in the eponymously-named opera which he wrote the following year. Angela Niederloh did a smashing job of it in this year's Portland Opera production). When I heard that JDF would sing DOTR this season I was thrilled for a number of reasons, one of which is this: in Act One Tonio sings an aria 'Ah! Mes amis' which is most notable for requiring the singer to encompass no less than nine high C's. In 1972 a young Luciano Pavarotti had his major breakthrough in the USA when he sung the role of Tonio at the Met, nailed the big ones and left the crowd gaga, which they pretty much remained for the next 30 years.

Last year Florez sang Tonio at La Scala, Milan, a house notoriously hard on singers (wouldn't you say, Roberto Alagna?). Mr Florez did well. They liked him. Actually, they pretty much went insane at the end of 'Ah! Mes amis' to the point of demanding and finally securing a bis*. The significance of this becomes apparent when you know that there hasn't been one of those at La Scala since 1933. There is to all intents and purposes a ban at La Scala on singers getting carried away with themselves and deciding to give their aria another shot. On this occasion the general manager came to the conclusion that the crowd weren't going to settle down again unless they were satisfied that JDF could hit those notes one more time and the signal was given.

So here we are, New York over a year later. Will the Met crowd be impressed? A bis here, perhaps? There have been only two in about 80 years, Pavarotti having given the last one in 1994 in a performance of Tosca. What view will Peter Gelb the new General Manager take? We now have the answers to those questions as this production opened on Monday night, Mr Florez was every bit as spectacular as was expected and after a standing ovation of about three minutes he obliged the opening-night crowd with a bis. This was very exciting of course but before we get carried away imagining what a glorious and spontaneous moment this must have been, here's an excerpt from the report in the following day's edition of the New York Times:

"It was one of those thrilling moments that opera impresarios live for.

And, in this case, prepare for. Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said on Tuesday that he had asked Mr. Flórez weeks ago whether he would be prepared to repeat the aria, if the audience demanded.

Mr. Flórez agreed to Mr. Gelb’s request, and the orchestra and chorus were warned. A system was established. Mr. Gelb kept an open line on the phone in his box to the stage manager. After the explosive reaction he gave the stage manager the go-ahead. The manager activated a podium light for the conductor, Marco Armiliato.

Mr. Armiliato held out a questioning two fingers to Mr. Flórez. “He just smiled, and that means ‘Yes,’ ” the conductor said, although Mr. Flórez said yesterday that he did not remember giving a signal. (After the encore, he jokingly held up a third finger.)"

If you would care to hear what got the crowd to its feet on Monday here is a live recording of that very performance.

All of this bodes well for an exciting simulcast on Saturday. Will JDF get to do another bis or is the ban back in place? You're kidding right? Mr. Gelb said there would be no encore ban on his watch, to make opera “as entertaining and exciting for the audience as it can be.” If you think Mr Gelb is going to pass up the opportunity to have this event immortalised on DVD at twenty bucks a pop you haven't been watching Mr Gelb very closely - or at all - this last year and a half. Mr Florez will have been given the go-ahead, the orchestra and chorus will have been warned. And the conductor had better not miss that light on his podium which Mr Gelb is going to activate for anything short of a vocal disaster.

I don't want to leave you with the impression that this production is all about the tenor. It has been very well received all around and in particular critics have praised Natalie Dessaye as the daughter praising her comedic talents as well as her voice and her chemistry with JDF. Here's what the International Herald Tribune had to say. I would say this is a 'don't miss' wouldn't you? Saturday, Lloyd C enter Regal Cinema 10:30am.

* 'bis' is the opera-specific word meaning "Do it again!" An encore is basically just something additional, a bis is the repeat of a particular aria.