PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Léo Delibes — LAKMÉ (E. Morley, F. Antoun, A. Walker, T. Hoffman, T. Raven, S. Huh, V. Filloux, L. Metzger, M.E. Grey; Washington Concert Opera, 22 May 2022)

CLÉMENT PHILIBERT LÉO DELIBES (1836 – 1891): Lakmé– Erin Morley (Lakmé), Frédéric Antoun (Gérald), Alfred Walker (Nilakantha), Theo Hoffman (Frédéric), Taylor Raven (Mallika), Sammy Huh (Hadji), Véronique Filloux (Ellen), Lindsay Metzger (Rose), Megan Esther Grey (Mistress Bentson); Washington Concert Opera Chorus and Orchestra; Antony Walker, conductor [Washington Concert Opera, Lisner Auditorium, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA; Sunday, 22 May 2022]

Many aspects of the world on and off the lyric stage have changed fundamentally since the world première of Léo Delibes’s best-remembered opera Lakmé at the Opéra-Comique on 14 April 1883. Familiar to Parisians in the final quarter of the Nineteenth Century, the social and cultural prejudices upon which Edmond Gondinet’s and Philippe Gille’s libretto for Lakmé, adapted from a story by Théodore Pavie, are centered are now denounced by civilized communities, yet they persist, gnawing at the fringes of progress. Perhaps this reminder of the ambiguities of societal evolution accounts in some part for the affection for Lakmé in her native France, where the opera continues to be performed, particularly at the Opéra-Comique, considerably more often than it is heard in other countries. Last heard at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in the 1946 - 1947 Season, when Lily Pons and Patrice Munsel alternated in the title rôle, Lakmé has been an infrequent visitor to North America. Is Lakmé’s juxtaposition of enticing exoticism and oppressive colonialism too uncomfortable a parallel to America’s troubled past?

Further expanding the company’s repertory beyond the bel canto and early-Nineteenth-Century works that serve as its cornerstones, Washington Concert Opera’s performance of Lakmé demonstrated that the piece is ideally suited to concert presentation, especially in today’s political climate, in which staging elements of the opera’s cultural stereotypes risks distracting audiences from the felicities of Delibes’s score. The popularity of Lakmé’s celebrated Duo des fleurs and Air des clochettes is warranted, but, by enabling the listener to focus in this performance primarily upon assessing the quality of Delibes’s writing, WCO’s musical forces affirmed that these familiar numbers exemplify rather than markedly exceeding the merits of the work as a whole. WCO’s home at Lisner Auditorium proved to be an exemplary venue for the opera, the size of the house spotlighting many subtle wonders of the composer’s orchestrations and permitting the cast to sing without pushing their voices. Admittedly, the unstaged format, combined with projected supertitles, prompted laughter in moments in which Delibes and his librettists likely would not have expected it, but even this validated the heightened connection between audience and music engendered by this performance.

In recent seasons, the playing of WCO’s orchestra has strengthened with each performance, achieving a high standard of musical integrity that was further elevated in this Lakmé. In his two-decade tenure as WCO’s Artistic Director, conductor Antony Walker has presided over performances of a broad spectrum of repertoire. The elegance of his pacing of bel canto works yielded a reading of Lakmé in which Delibes’s vibrant writing for the orchestra was the infrastructure that allowed the opera’s melodies to flow organically. Walker accentuated the score’s lyricism without shortchanging its surging intensity, Wagnerian grumblings propelling rather than overwhelming dulcet passages. Harpist Eric Sabatino, percussionists Joe McIntyre and John Kilkenny (stewards of the climactic cymbals and the tinkling chimes in the opera’s best-known aria), and the wind players thrilled, but not one of their fellow musicians was audibly daunted by the music’s challenges, not least in the atmospheric Prélude and Entr’actes. Manifested in deft transitions among scenes, Walker’s gift for adopting tempi that are both faithful to the score and supportive of the singers unerringly guided his handling of Lakmé.

Like their colleagues in the orchestra, WCO’s choristers refine their skills with each subsequent performance, building upon David Hanlon’s training to enrich this Lakmé with choral singing of an order comparable to the work of the world’s best opera-house choruses. In the opening scenes of Acts One and Two, the moods of reverence and revelry were compellingly contrasted, but the singers’ musicality was unchanging. Similarly, the sentiments of ‘Des siens séparant le coupable’ in Act Two and ‘Descendons la pente doucement’ in Act Three were differentiated, but both numbers were sung with power and near-perfect ensemble. Delibes’s choral writing plays an integral rôle in creating the hypnotic musical world into which Lakmé’s colonial interlopers trespass, and the WCO chorus performed that rôle stirringly.

La fille des dieux et son ami fidèle: (from left to right) soprano Erin Morley as Lakmé and tenor Sammy Huh as Hadji in Washington Concert Opera’s performance of Léo Delibes’s Lakmé, 22 May 2022
[Photograph by Caitlin Oldham, © by Washington Concert Opera]

The breadth of talent in the Washington metropolitan area is often evident in WCO performances, the company’s casting taking advantage of the region’s abundant musical resources. The minor rôles of the Marchand chinois, Domben, and Kouravar who appear in the opera’s ‘ scène du marché at the start of Act Two were omitted from this Lakmé, in which the ballet music was also truncated. Nilakantha’s servant Hadji is not a large part, but tenor Sammy Huh sang his music with secure intonation and dramatic instincts that were apparent even in this concert presentation. In Huh’s thoughtful performance, the brief scene in Act Two in which Hadji articulates the depth of his feelings for Lakmé, pledging to punish her enemies and aid her friends, was genuinely touching, the character’s devotion discernibly extending beyond mere loyalty.

Les intruses britanniques: (from left to right): contralto Megan Esther Grey as Mistress Bentson, mezzo-soprano Lindsay Metzger as Rose, and soprano Véronique Filloux as Ellen in Washington Concert Opera’s performance of Léo Delibes’s Lakmé, 22 May 2022
[Photograph by Caitlin Oldham, © by Washington Concert Opera]

In the quintette in Act One and the bazaar and final scenes of Act Two, Delibes’s music for the ladies of the opera’s British contingent—the soldier Gérald’s fiancée Ellen, her confidante Rose, and the governess Mistress Bentson—was sung with apt precision and decorum by soprano Véronique Filloux, mezzo-soprano Lindsay Metzger, and contralto Megan Esther Grey. Filloux voiced Ellen’s couplet, ‘Nous sommes conquises avec moins d’éclat,’ charmingly, her upper register glowing, and Metzger’s Rose sparred with the pragmatic Frédéric with wit and alluring tone. The exasperation with which Grey uttered Mistress Bentson’s objections to the volume of the Hindu celebration—devised solely as a deafening annoyance to the conquering British, she insists—provided a welcome comedic contrast to the drama’s tension.

Les dames aux jasmin: mezzo-soprano Taylor Raven as Mallika (left) and soprano Erin Morley as Lakmé (right) in Washington Concert Opera’s performance of Léo Delibes’s Lakmé, 22 May 2022
[Photograph by Caitlin Oldham, © Washington Concert Opera]

Aside from partnering her mistress in the famed Duo des fleurs, Lakmé’s servant Mallika has little to do as the opera progresses, but mezzo-soprano Taylor Raven made each of the character’s appearances on stage significant. She sang all of Mallika’s lines with sincerity and full, focused tone, but many listeners assess a singer’s success in the part based solely upon her singing of ‘Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin.’ By this narrow measure, too, Raven’s performance was glorious. Even in moments during which she was not singing, Raven was wholly involved in the performance, visibly reacting to the developing drama, but it was her voice that lent her characterization of Mallika depth and humanity.

Les soldats dévoués: tenor Frédéric Antoun as Gérald (left) and baritone Theo Hoffman as Frédéric (right) in Washington Concert Opera’s performance of Léo Delibes’s Lakmé, 22 May 2022
[Photograph by Caitlin Oldham, © by Washington Concert Opera]

Baritone Theo Hoffman portrayed the savvy Frédéric with humor and sophistication, credibly projecting martial arrogance tempered by empathy whilst adhering to Delibes’s Francophone idiom. Endeavoring in the Act One quintette to offer a nuanced view of Hindu society to the unimpressed Britons, this Frédéric delivered his couplet ‘Leur vertu si bizarre manque d’apparat’ shrewdly, the smile in Hoffman’s voice equally amused and bemused. In the final scene of Act Two, Hoffman voiced ‘C’est pour admirer la déesse’ suavely, Frédéric’s noble spirit emerging from his trenchant banter. Concern for the peril in which Gérald is immersed suffused the baritone’s singing in Act Three, his Frédéric divining that an untroubled resolution of his brother-in-arms’s illicit liaison with Lakmé is impossible. Throughout the evening, Hoffman sang intelligently, employing his handsome timbre rather than pomposity to impart Frédéric’s intuitive sagacity.

Le père vengeur: bass-baritone Alfred Walker as Nilakantha (right) in Washington Concert Opera’s performance of Léo Délibes’s Lakmé, 22 May 2022
[Photograph by Caitlin Oldham, © by Washington Concert Opera]

Lakmé’s father, the implacable Brahman priest Nilakantha, was depicted with unstinting vocal and dramatic force by bass-baritone Alfred Walker, whose clangorous tones imparted the cleric’s warnings ferociously. Recognizing a kinship with Oroveso in Bellini’s Norma, Walker also emphasized the paternal warmth in Nilakantha’s music, voicing ‘Lakmé, c’est toi qui nous protèges’ in Act One affectionately. The portentous lines ‘Dans ma demeure! Un profane est entré chez moi!’ wer​e then declaimed with startling menace, Gérald’s violation of the sanctity of the Brahmans’ enclave awaking Nilakantha’s fury.

The adaptability of Walker’s artistry was exhibited by the affecting gentleness with which he sang Nilakantha’s stances in Act Two, ‘Lakmé, ton doux regard se voile,’ his cantabile singing no less memorable than his roaring admonitions. The impact of his detonation of ‘La rage me dévore’ was wrenching, the father’s indignation yielding to frightening fanaticism. Still, there were suggestions of benevolence in Walker’s account of ‘Au millieu des chants d’allégresse.’ Finding Gérald in Lakmé’s presence in Act Three, this Nilakantha’s declaration of ‘C’est lui!’ was a cry of both hatred and alarm. The priest’s disgust upon perceiving that Lakmé sacrified herself to allaying the dishonor of her forbidden love for Gérald blended with the father’s grief, Walker singing of Lakmé having joined the gods in heaven movingly. Without the aid of staging, Walker made Nilakantha a fascinating, fleetingly sympathetic character, rivaling Ezio Pinza’s portrayal of the rôle in the 1940 and 1941 Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.

L’amant en conflit: tenor Frédéric Antoun as Gérald in Washington Concert Opera’s performance of Léo Delibes’s Lakmé, 22 May 2022
[Photograph by Caitlin Oldham, © by Washington Concert Opera]

Like his countryman Raoul Jobin, Québécois tenor Frédéric Antoun brought to the rôle of Gérald the invaluable boons of native French and a voice possessing both the proper placement for Delibes’s musical style and heft sufficient to vault the ardent soldier’s most impassioned passages into the auditorium with little strain. From his first words in the Act One quintette, Antoun evinced Gérald’s fascination with his unfamiliar surroundings, his detachment from his British compatriots increasing as he succumbed to India’s enigmas. The frequent ascents to top A♭ in Gérald’s air ‘Fantaisie aux divins mensonges’ were approached fearlessly, only occasional moments of slight unsteadiness betraying the effort required to sustain the rôle’s high tessitura. The first of Gérald’s amorous duets with Lakmé inspired Antoun to vocalism of romantic zeal, his performance of ‘Oublier que je t’ai vue’ shimmering with burgeoning eroticism.

As Gérald was seized by love for Lakmé in Act Two, the fervor of Antoun’s voicing intensified. His ecstatic enunciation of ‘C’est Lakmé, c’est elle!’ gleamed, and his secure top B♭s and B were rousing but unexaggerated pinnacles of his singing in the duet with Lakmé. Both ‘C’est un rêve, une folie’ in the final scene of Act Two and the cantilène ‘Ah! Viens dans la forêt profonde’ in Act Three were articulated with riveting immediacy, and the tenor intoned ‘Quel est ce chant plein de tendresse’ elegantly. In Antoun’s portrayal, the uncertainty in Gérald’s scene with Frédéric gave way to devastating anguish in the subsequent duet with Lakmé. In the opera’s final scene, Antoun aimed Gérald’s ‘Grand Dieu! Elle meurt pour moi!’ at the audience’s collective heart and squarely hit his target. In truth, Antoun captured the audience’s adulation in his first moments on stage. In the minutes that followed, he earned admiration for his dazzling singing of Delibes’ music.

La voix de la légende: soprano Erin Morley as Lakmé in Washington Concert Opera’s performance of Léo Delibes’s Lakmé, 22 May 2022
[Photograph by Caitlin Oldham, © by Washington Concert Opera]

Delibes composed the title rôle in Lakmé for American soprano Marie van Zandt, whose career in Paris garnered both high-society patronage and intrigue. Van Zandt’s début rôle at the Metropolitan Opera was Amina in Bellini’s La sonnambula, but it is difficult to imagine that she elucidated the parallels between Bellini’s and Delibes’s heroines as persuasively as Erin Morley did in her first portrayal of Lakmé. In WCO’s Lakmé, the prière at the beginning of Act One, ‘Blanche Dourga, pâle Siva,’ was pure bel canto, the soprano’s syncopation and trills on top B♭ recalling Norma’s ‘Casta diva.’ Morley dominated these early hazards, technical acuity seconded by often exquisite tonal beauty, and she joined Raven in a bewitching traversal of ‘Sous le dôme épais où le blanc jasmin.’ The simplicity of her rendering of ‘Pourquoi dans les grands bois aimé-je à m’égarer pour y pleurer?’ perfectly suited the poignancy of the music, the girl’s melancholy limned by delicate phrasing. Morley’s vocalism underwent a transformation in the duo with Gérald, the initial trepidation of her ‘D’où viens-tu?’ blossoming into emotional confidence.

Aptly rewarded with a standing ovation, Morley’s performance of ‘Où va la jeune Indoue’ in Act Two, the Légende de la fille du Paria more often identified as the Air des clochettes, was sensational, the sole signal of the music’s difficulty being a floated top B that faltered very briefly. The intonation of the pealing staccati was utterly accurate, and the top Es were effortless. The Légende is the zenith of many Lakmés’ performances, but it was only one peak in the expansive range charted by Morley. Her voicing of ‘Mon ciel n’est pas le tien’ in the duet with Gérald was achingly expressive and complemented by a sublime account of ‘Dans la forêt, près de nous.’ Yet another facet of her characterization sparkled in her conflicted singing of ‘Ils croient leur vengeance assouvie!’ in the act’s final scene.

Another peak in Morley’s performance was the berceuse in Act Three, ‘Sous le ciel tout étoilé,’ resplendently sung and crowned by an especially lovely top C. In this performance, Lakmé’s ‘Quand ils ont effleuré de leurs lèvres brûlantes’ was unmistakably a cousin of Amina’s ‘Ah! non credea mirarti’ in La sonnambula, and Morley voiced Delibes’s music with the poise demanded by bel canto. The last of her duets with Gérald received musical emoting of great poise from this Lakmé, who then voiced ‘Tu m’as donné le plus doux rêve’ and the haunting ‘S’il faut à nos dieux’ with unaffected grace. Beyond the walls of Lisner Auditorium, it was a stormy evening in Washington, and a burst of thunder shook the hall at the moment at which Morley lowered her head to mark Lakmé’s death. Uplifted by an ensemble of artists who liberated Lakmé from the stigma of cultural insensitivity, hers was a performance that literally rose to the heavens.