Travesty at the Met

The Metropolitan Opera showed last week why it is sometimes called the Metropolitan Museum of Opera: it presented Verdi's nearly forgotten Ernani. Unofficial reason for the revival: to provide a spectacular assignment for the Met's own longtime exhibit, Soprano Zinka Milanov, who has been buffeted by the triumphs of Italy's Renata Tebaldi and Maria Meneghini Callas. But the combination of early Verdi and late Milanov was simply painful.

The plot of Ernani, based on a Victor Hugo play, resembles a travesty of all grand-opera plots. The main motivation seems to be the handsome Bandit Ernani's death wish. Before he finally kills himself in Act IV, he gets into all sorts of entanglements with the King of Spain, an old grandee, and the woman who is desired by all of them. Amidst a welter of prayers, supplications, pageants and credos, nothing occurs resembling a human relationship. Similarly, the score, composed when Verdi was 30, sounds like a not very funny satire of Verdian music that put listeners in mind of the gaudy decorations on an old merry-go-round.

The Met lavished its most expensive talents on Ernani. It got Spanish-born Artist Esteban Frances to design sets and costumes, surrounded Diva Milanov with Tenor Mario Del Monaco, Baritone Leonard Warren and Basso Cesare Siepi. To little avail. Of the four stars, nobody sang well in Act I, and Milanov appeared to be suffering from dizziness, staggering and finally getting herself planted before starting to sing. Vocally, she was plagued by an excruciatingly bad sense of pitch, although she had sung her role commendably in the dress rehearsal. Her loyal supporters wore lapel buttons reading "Viva Zinka!", but it did not help.

Star of the evening was Baritone Warren. He had a few bad moments when the audience first glimpsed his toadstool-shaped black armor and snickered. But he came through, as always, with sane, reliable singing in a beautiful voice. Bronx-born Baritone Warren spent a year and a half learning his part, and if he seemed just a bit boring as Charles V, it was probably because he understood the boring role so well.

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