We weren’t granted these satisfactions here. This orchestra simply doesn’t have the mystique  in its blood or its training, and Petrenko, at least on this first outing, wasn’t able to prod it as far toward it as Gergiev had. He was also undoubtedly aware of the necessity of holding things under for a cast that was at several points underpowered for their parts. Nevertheless, the Met orchestra is obviously a quality ensemble, and Petrenko’s reading was not lazy or sloppy. So despite the apparently ingrained cap on passion and moments of lapsed tension, enough came through to convey the essential properties of this riveting score.

The opera’s key role, that of Ghermann, was taken for most of these performances by Yusif Eyvazovis. But on Dec. 18 it was sung by the Lithuanian tenor Kristian Benedikt, who made his local debut last season during the run of Samson et Dalila that was salvaged at the last minute by Gregory Kunde (see the posts of 4/5/19 and 4/19/19). Benedikt has been undertaking some of the major dramatic tenor assignments in Europe and, like Davidsen, has to his credit a recent aria CD. His voice has some substance; however, its color is grey and its emission often constricted. He managed some of the declamatory writing respectably, but was not able to provide much beauty or shape to such crucial passages as his introductory confession to Tomsky (“Ya imeni yeyo ne znayu“) in the first scene or his pleas and declarations of love to Lisa in the second. By the time he reached his song in the last scene (“Chto nasha zhizn? Igra!“) he was growing hoarse, and was obliged to render his heart-rending final lines in a pallid falsetto.

The other roles, I’m afraid, all fell into the “underpowered” category I mentioned above. This doesn’t mean they were poorly performed. Igor Golovatenko, the Yeletsky, has a pleasing baritone, an admirable legato, and excellent intonation. He looked fine, too. But Yeletzky must dominate vocally, and not only in the famous aria (“Ya vas lyublyu“) that is the centerpiece of the ballroom scene, but in the nine blandishing bars of moderato assai that follow the troubling suspicions of the Scene 1 quintet, and above all in the few lines given him in the finale, where his midrange pronouncements must cut through definitively in the high-intensity atmosphere. That didn’t happen. Similarly, although Alexey Markov narrated Tomsky’s Act 1 ballad with good timing and nuance (and Petrenko worked well with him for the many little holds and pickups of tempo), more of his intent came through in his acting than in his singing, for the piece is grounded lower than Markov’s voice sits. We have classic recorded voicings of these roles that show us their full effects (Pavel Lisitsian and Dusan Popovich for Yeletsky; Didur himself, in Italian now, in Tomsky’s gambling scene song. (And perhaps a bass with a fine top is really the ideal solution—you might check out Mario Petri, also in Italian, in a performance of mysterious provenance.^(I) Searching these out is certainly worth one’s while. But we have very respectable recent exemplars, too. The Yeletsky and Tomsky of this production’s premiere were Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Nicolai Putilin, respectively, both in their house debuts.