hat a delightful night at the San Francisco Opera!  Far from being ‘regimental’, this production of  “La Fille du Régiment” achieves wonderful fluidity in both its comedic and vocal executions, thanks in part to Agathe Mélinand’s sparkling new French dialogue (with a hilarious sprinkle of English) as well as Laurent Pelly’s zany stage direction.   Apparently, the overflowing audience and packed standing room agreed.  Each aria, each duet, each ensemble, was enthusiastically received with shouts of bravo and bursts of applause.  The brightly-colored, cleverly-conceived sets by Chantal Thomas and period costumes by Laurent Pelly were beautiful to behold, evoking the early 20^th-Century French region of Tyrol.  The winning cast, led by superstar tenor Juan Diego Flórez as the romantic soldier hero Tonio, features Germany’s high-flying coloratura soprano Diana Damrau as the tomboyish military brat Marie, veteran comedian bass-baritone Bruno Pratico’s Sgt Sulpice, and mezzo-soprano Meredith Arwady’s hysterically funny Marquise Berkenfeld.   Ms. Damrau, it must be said, is a fine comedienne and a skilled mistress of the belcanto art, despite her annoying tendency to sing certain soft passages in half tone or reduce the volume to an inaudible wimper, in so doing Marie’s Act 2 aria ‘Par le rang et par’ was robbed much of its emotional intensity.   In full voice, however, Damrau sounded radiant in her Act 1 duet with Flórez, their voices blending beautifully and glowingly.  Flórez was a class act all by himself and did not disappoint with his perfectly rousing rendition of Tonio’s aria ‘Ah! Mes amis, quel jour de fête!’ – hitting all nine high C’s with military precision and effectively bringing the house down.

Ukrainian conductor Andriy Yurkevych provided a superb and energetic accompaniment to the singers, keeping a forward pulse that was precise yet flexible, and showing a true affinity to Donizetti’s music. 

ozart’s Singspiel comedy also received a delightful presentation with a youthful cast and a theatrical production by Chas Rader-Shieber and David Zinn.  Starting with the premise that life is theater, we watch the main actions unfold inside the elevated frame of a theater, and the background actions are relegated to the areas outside or below the theatrical frame.  This works especially well in Act Three, when the ‘offstage’ Pedrillo boasts about their successful group escape, but unbeknownst to him, each of his partners is being roped up by Pasha’s guards because they can escape the ‘main stage’.  The period sets and costumes are beautiful to behold.  The dramatic lighting by Christopher Akerlind enhances the theatricalized concept of the production.  Constanze, for example, casts a long shadow on a dimly-lit stage during her anguished showpiece “Martern aller Arten”. 

erman soprano Nadja Michael charmed, terrified and bewitched the San Francisco Opera audience in the enfant terrible role of Salome.  She had previously sung it in Milan and London to considerable acclaim (less so the dark Luc Bondy production).   The San Francisco Opera has long been a fertile ground for established European stars to make their American debuts, and potentially to subsequent fame and fortune (Valery Gergiev, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Anna Netrebko, to name a very few).  Judging from her winning performance last Sunday, one could safely say that another star is born in San Francisco.  In her late thirties, Ms. Michael is nonetheless petite and nimble enough to portray believably a sixteen-year-old spoiled brat obsessed with her desire for Jokanaan.  Her voice, equally nimble and athletic, could plumb the mezzo-soprano depths with sardonic force, or rise up to ecstatic heights (up to a high B-natural) in Salome’s final scene.  Like her many predecessors in this role (Malfitano, Ewing, Mattila), Ms. Michael performed the famous “Dance of the Seven Veils” herself and bared all at its conclusion; unlike them, however, she did it with consummate grace and white-heat eroticism – no doubt a result of careful coaching by the ballerina-turned-director Seán Curran.   The clever, strategic use of crimson sheer, voluminous fabric tossed in the air to form long arcs only added to the exoticism and sensuality of Salome’s dance.