Word: arias
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...stepped on the operatic stage wrapped mainly in a glittering European reputation. Regally got up in golden headdress and pearl-spattered green gown, she floated onto a moonlit stage in the second scene of Act I and filled the house with warm and lustrous sound in her beautiful aria Tacea la notte. With a fine economy of gesture and movement throughout the long evening, she acted a passionate Leonora...
...opulent in the upper as the lower registers, and it negotiated the distance between them with liquid ease. It never strained. Her muted trills alone were enough to justify the Italian critic who was reminded of "a skylark under bewitchment." When she completed the Act IV aria, D'amor sull'ali rosee, she received the kind of ovation that at the Met signifies unconditional surrender...
...love with Laura, who is married to Alvise. By the time Gorria-Boito sets things right, four acts and nearly that number of hours have elapsed. But La Gioconda is a singers' opera, and it gives the principals some rousing tunes, including Enzo's great second-act aria, Cielo e mar, superbly rendered last week by Tenor Tucker...
...performances of all the principals, Farrell sang not only with her fabled power but with limpid clarity and velvety richness. If she still occasionally strained on top notes, she more than made up for it with the rich play of emotion that flooded her voice in her fourth-act aria, Suicidio. And she acted surprisingly well in a role that practically invites parody. Her Gioconda demonstrated that a truly distinguished Farrell performance at the Met requires only the combination of a good night and an opera with more than pretty tunes...
...considerably more competent. The melodic lines were supple, the tone solid, and the phrasing refreshingly simple. But these good people were often forced to compete with the instrumentalists who were accompanying them. I was particularly impressed by Lila Woodruff's clear and completely unaffected reading of the soprano aria, Quia respexit, which she accomplished by completely ignoring a jarring accompaniment by a very poorly tuned oboe d'amore...