Le Comte d'Ory at the Met, 14 Apr 2011

The orchestra and the staging overshadowed the voices. Juan Diego Flórez as Ory, Joyce DiDonato as Isolier, and Stéphane Degout were fine; Michele Pertusi as the Tutor was a little dull. The production is slapstick, which worked in the first act but was overdone in the second.

I liked the framing effect of showing the backstage and technical work: costumed crew operate fluttering butterfly puppets and dance the trees and doorframes around as though a movie camera were following the action; a crooked window descends from above and Ragonde delivers her aria through it from a stepladder. It created a fairy-tale feeling that I thought suited a light comedy about a rogue trickster, and the stage business between the hermit and the page competing for the countess was precisely timed and fun.

The flawed second act makes the countess’ peaceful retreat look like a bordello, the tippling knights disguised as nuns was well sung but unimaginatively staged, and Ory in nun’s habit, wooing the countess in the dark, while unknowingly holding Isolier’s hand, is turned into a tumbling threesome that doesn’t come off, since it isn’t at all clear which characters are aware of whom they are mis-grappling. But the first act was good enough to make up for the second.