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Impossible the job may be; it is unquestionably important. Says retired Diva Beverly Sills, now director of the New York City Opera: "The Met has the funding, wonderful facilities, glamour, international stars. It is the most prestigious opera house in the world." As such, the Met must act as an aural museum, preserving and displaying the standard repertory: works such as La Traviata, Tosca and Die Meistersinger. But an opera house must also be active in reviving worthy pieces and commissioning new ones. Under Levine's artistic administration, the Met has successfully explored new territory in such operas as Poulenc's fervid Dialogues of the Carmelites, Berg's thorny Lulu, Kurt Weill's sardonic Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and the ebullient French triple bill Parade. In standard works, such as Verdi's Don Carlo and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, the company has used the latest scholarship to offer versions that are as musicologically accurate as possible. In honor of its centennial next season, the Met has commissioned new operas from Composers Jacob Druckman (on the Medea legend) and John Corigliano (based on the third of Beaumarchais's Figaro plays).
So far this season there have been two new productions: a grandly ceremonial staging of Mozart's Idomeneo by Director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, and a controversial setting of Macbeth by Sir Peter Hall. The Met cast Idomeneo as few houses can, with Pavarotti, Mezzo Frederica von Stade and Sopranos Hildegarde Behrens and lleana Cotrubas. All had voices big, agile and beautiful enough to handle the opera's extraordinary demands, and the result was a triumph.
Macbeth, however, had problems. The production was vehemently booed on its opening night in November by a segment of the audience that found the sight of witches flying through the air on broomsticks risible, the presence of a nude dancer inappropriate and the arrival of white-clad ballerinas during Macbeth's dream sequence comical. Some prominent critics were outraged: Donal Henahan, in the New York Times, said Macbeth "may just be the worst new production ... in modern [Met] history." Hall's attempt to place the opera in a mid-19th century theatrical context was daring, but sometimes miscalculated.
Inevitably, Levine comes in for his share of criticism; on its basest level, he is booed with surprising frequency by a vocal minority at the Met when he takes his post-performance bows. Levine's tempos can be brisk to the point of hastiness, and in his enthusiasm for the music he often lets the sound of the orchestra overwhelm the singers, swamping them amid Wagnerian brass fortissimos or with the urgent sweep of passionate Verdian strings. Even the Met orchestra musicians, who are generally enthusiastic about their conductor, complain. Sometimes after a performance they leave informal, anonymous critiques: "Too loud, Maestro." "Much too slow." "Much too fast."