A shining production of Bellini's `Norma'

Washington Opera strikes gold with Papian in title role

MusicReview

With perfect timing, the moon rose over Constitution Hall Tuesday night as patrons arrived to hear a performance of an opera most famous for its exquisite prayer to a "chaste" and "unveiled" lunar goddess. The sight of that silvery moon turned out to be a good omen.

Bellini's Norma, one of the masterpieces of the Italian style known as bel canto, is notoriously difficult to stage, primarily because of the technical and interpretive demands it makes on the soprano in the title role. Everyone in the cast, for that matter, must cope with Bellini's eloquent, Chopin-esque melodies, and must also find a way to infuse both music and plot with emotional truths. Washington Opera's new production succeeds admirably, at least where it counts most.

Let's face it. Norma rises or sinks on the strength of its Norma. As the Druid priestess who forgets her sacred vows and takes up with, of all people, a Roman occupier, Norma presents the off-kilter moral center of the opera. She must convince us that she is, at heart, a decent woman and, in the end, a noble one. We can only believe in her if her voice can grab us as firmly as it locks onto Bellini's vocal lines. And if she can win us over right at the start with that plea to the moon, Casta diva.

Many's the soprano who has been so defeated by the long, arcing phrases of that aria that we're left wishing that the producers had casta 'nother diva. But in Hasmik Papian, Washington Opera has struck gold. From the first notes of her entrance scene on Tuesday, the singer staked her claim on the role and the score.

Papian may not have offered the ultimate in interpretive personality, and a few top notes may have lacked support, but this was still very accomplished work. Intensified by a darkly burnished low register, her voice commanded attention, while her phrasing caught the music's beauty and drama in roughly equal proportions. I do wish she had made more of the potentially electrifying line in the finale when she admits her guilt to her fellow Druids, but she achieved remarkable poignancy in the rest of that scene.

When she starred in Baltimore Opera's 1998 production of the piece, Irina Mishura was Norma's fellow fallen virgin, Adalgisa. The same mezzo is again starring opposite Papian. She brought considerable vocal force, if not always warmth of tone, to the assignment. The splendid Mira, o Norma duet calls for a sweeter and more carefully coordinated blend than this duo mustered, but that proved a minor disappointment.