I Serenissimi

By Martha Duffy

The Metropolitan Opera used to be known as a rich, acquisitive collector of the biggest stars available. There are not so many supersingers around now, and the Met has been hiring them less frequently. Last week in its first production of Vincenzo Bellini's I Puritani in almost 60 years, the company reverted to its grand old ways, presenting three top international singers--Joan Sutherland, Luciano Pavarotti and Sherrill Milnes. It made a particularly satisfying, old-fashioned night at the opera.

I Puritani contains scarcely any drama at all. What plot it has concerns two noble lovers who are temporarily made unhappy by conflicting allegiances to Cavaliers and Roundheads in 17th century England. The opera unfolds like a torpid, benign Lucia di Lammermoor: it has a hero who prefers politics to love, a heroine who goes mad. By the time all turns out for the best, it is hard to remember what went wrong: three scenes contain no action of any kind.

Money Tenor. The production is geared to the opera's sublime disregard for stagecraft. The sets, also by Ming Cho Lee, are elegant suggestions of an isolated royal redoubt. By contrast, Peter J. Hall's costumes are as palpable as the clothes people wear in Flemish domestic paintings. The two elements blend in Sandro Sequi's direction, which amounts to little more than staging subtly shifting tableaux.

It all makes a fitting backdrop for the evening's vocal triumph. In the current vogue for bel canto opera, I Puritani appears increasingly in the repertory of major companies. Often the production is not much more than a vehicle for a soprano. But the Met also offers a stirring male trio: Pavarotti, Milnes and James Morris, 29, whom the company has brought along carefully. Though Mimes' baritone is too dramatic for a legato line, his declamations are thrilling. Pavarotti, a money tenor in the way that Tom Seaver is a money pitcher, revels in his recklessly high flourishes. Sutherland fits into this bravura company, partly because she never tries to outshine her colleagues. A languid, settled presence onstage, she has been called in Italy, with affection and an edge of wit, La Serenissima (the most serene). At 49 she still sings with supple power, and her coloratura flights have the brilliance and definition of a fire works display when it first spreads out against the sky. She and her colleagues seemed to enjoy their tasks, which included standing still during the long episodes of applause. It was a serene evening, devoted confidently to the glories of the voice.

Martha Duffy

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