And to the supporting female roles: Elena Maximova, the Paulina, though possessed of an attractive basic timbre, had insufficient low-range richness for her Scene 2 duet and Romance, and when the song climbed, her upper G-flats and A-flat weren’t ideally centered, either. Again, we don’t have to enter the operatic time machine, where we might encounter the great mezzo Irina Arkhipova on the 1967 Bolshoi recording, or even turn to the more recent version (on a recital disc) by Ewa Podles—for along with Hvorostovsky and Putilin, Olga Borodina was also in that 1995 cast.^(I) Maximova and Markov were both heard to better effect with their parts in the Act 2 pastoral. The veteran Maryinsky mezzo Larissa Diadkova was closer to the mark in the crucial role of the old Countess. After a number of encounters with superannuated mezzos and sopranos cameo-ing away in this part, though, I’m of the opinion that it is best served by a deep mezzo or contralto of some personal authority in her prime singing years, e. g., Regina Resnik at the Met in ’65, or Arkhipova for the Bolshoi in ’67. Use some makeup and hobble a bit.

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NEXT TIME: We’ll have the Met’s new production of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, with William Kentridge as director/designer and Yannick Nézet-Séguin as conductor, to wrestle with. N.B.: owing to the time and labor involved in re-locating my teaching studio, this post will go up four weeks from today, i. e., on Friday, Jan. 31.