First review: Asmik Grigorian makes a muted Met debut

Review for slippedisc.com by Susan Hall:

Asmik Grigorian, the toast of Europe and Carnegie Hall, made her Metropolitan Opera debut last night as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly. Her international career began with a ravishing Cio-Cio San sung in Stockholm. She sang the role a few years ago in Vienna, which used the same production the Met does: Anthony Minghella’s ravishingly beautiful interpretation. Now at the Met, Xian Zhang conducts.

Patricia Racette sang the role first at the Met and shuffled. This helped to make Cio-Cio-San a very credible young girl. Ms. Grigorian walks with a grown-up step, offering an older geisha. She does not flutter like a butterfly. Instead, her arms are extended wide as wings.

The ceremonial de-flowering of Cio-Cio San and her ritualistic suicide bracket a central vigil, as Butterfly, her son by the American Lieutenant Pinkerton, and Suzuki her maid, await the arrival of Pinkerton’s ship years after he left town and a pregnant geisha.

The opera is unusually still. Butterfly’s home is the setting. In Japan, the mistress of the house and the house itself are merged. Action is interior and stylized, which may not best display Ms. Grigorian’s dramatic style. Her Salome and Chrysothemis in Elektra were electrifying in Salzburg’s Festspielhaus.

Minghella aimed to make the stillness of the opera meaningful. Ms. Grigorian does stillness well. She has captivating phrasing that reflects emotion and character. Her dynamics are impeccable. Yet tones are not variously colored and in some passages, her voice does not ride over the orchestra.

Ms Grigorian is best heard and seen close up. It may also be the European opera houses which don’t exceed 2200 seats benefit her. (The Met has 3776 seats).

Geraldine Farrar debuted the role in America in 1907. Her voice was small. Yet she performed Cio-Cio-San 139 times. Although she apparently didn’t have Ms.Grigorian’s dramatic skills, she had a wild group of followers, the Gerry-Flappers. Busloads of high school students, some from as far away as Rhode Island, filled the Met Opera House for the debut. Will Ms. Grigorian attract a passionate following too?