SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Verdi, Requiem: Heidi Melton (soprano) Stephanie Blythe (mezzo) Stefano Secco (tenor) Andrea Silvestrell (bass) Ian Robertson (Chorus director) ; The San Francisco Opera Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Donald Runnicles, San Francisco Opera House, San Francisco, 30.5.2009 (PD)


It was supposed to be all about Donald Runnicles, the outgoing  artistic director of the San Francisco Opera conducting his own gala concert for an adoring audience eager to make it known that he would be truly missed. Leave it to a diva, however, to steal some of the anticipated thunder.

Due to a sudden onset of illness, soprano Patricia Racette withdrew on the eve of the performance. That left Heidi Melton, a third-year Adler Fellow, to step in at the 11^th hour. And step in she did, rising to the occasion and demonstrating that she has a voice of her own to be reckoned with. Not that SFO subscribers were completely unfamiliar with her: Melton made her debut here in 2007 as Marianne in Der Rosenkavalier, sang Diana in Iphigénie en Tauride, and created the role of Mary Todd Lincoln in the world premiere of Philip Glass’s Appomattox. In other words, Heidi Melton has been on a fast track for some time now, and she was not about to break pace.

Nor could she afford to do so on this rare occasion,  when the San Francisco Opera Chorus and Orchestra was staging a  one-night only performance. Sharing the stage with her was the renowned mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, making her SFO debut. Both singers exchanged cheerful, if somewhat jittery, greetings as the chorus intoned the Requiem and Kyrie.

The first soloist to be heard however  was the bass Andrea Silvestrelli, who was so impressive here last season as Fasolt in Das Rheingold. A huge man with a huge vocal instrument, he brought gravitas and a Wagnerian boldness when announcing that “Death and Nature shall stand amazed, when all Creation rises again to answer to the judge.”

Blythe made her entrance next, gently harmonizing with the chorus on Liber scriptus proferetur, before being joined by Melton, and Italian tenor, Stefano Secco for Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Of these four principals, it was Secco who was perhaps the most disappointing. Also making his SFO debut, he seemed tentative and somewhat uncomfortable for most of the early evening. His singing  of  “I groan as the guilty one, and my face blushes with guilt,” seemed strangely apt. He’s a good vocal actor though, and we will get another look at him in 2010 when he returns to play Gounod’s Faust.

As for the chorus -  well, they were simply flawless. They had been rigorously rehearsed and proved determined to bring the house down. Widely recognized as one of the world’s best, they gave an inspired performance steadily growing in force and power. While Verdi did not compose The Requiem as a liturgical piece, the sacred nature of the work was made clear by the rendering here, casting a spell throughout the packed and silent War Memorial. We have noted before that San Francisco audiences often have too many coughers and whisperers among them. Not so this evening. An almost reverential attitude prevailed throughout the 90-minute concert, making its deafening climax all the more grand. Cheers and whistles were part of the aftermath, as a crowd of devoted listeners paid tribute to the ensemble and the man who led them – Maestro Runnicles.

Before accepting the San Francisco Opera Medal in a post-performance ceremony for his distinguished 17-year tenure as music director, Runnicles showed another bit of styleby acknowledging Patricia Racette’s understudy in his final address. “I want you to know that I wasn’t the only one kept awake by the thought of coming out here tonight,” he said with a wink and nod toward Heidi Melton. “I have been blessed by being surrounded by people I love.

Paul Duclos

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