After the Met’s decades of assorted tinkerings over the first act (how it should be redacted, where it should begin and in which language, how it can be staged, and how it can be cast with voices compatible with the demands of the succeeding acts), I felt quite companionable with the four-act edition and, for all its occasional ungainliness, the Italian language. Yes, Verdi caught some attractive Parisian tints in that first act, as he had in Ballo in Maschera. But his music (including its strongly implied vocal typology) is obstinately Mediterranean in ways that he himself did more than any other composer to define, and it settles more confidently into itself once past the Fontainebleau act. This season’s version elided the restoration of the extended quartet with ensemble following Rodrigo’s death, but retained the marziale section of the Elisabetta/Carlo duet in the last scene. These are also good decisions, I believe.

With two exceptions, the cast of principals was stronger than last year’s. One exception was in the role of the Grand Inquisitor, wherein John Relyea repeated his earlier performance with remarkably small difference, considering the influence of the language change. The other was in the title part, and this earns a bye, since it involved a short-notice substitution. One of the artists I’d most looked forward to hearing was Russell Thomas, who has been singing heavy-calibre roles of late (Alvaro, Calàf, Otello) to general approval. But for a reason undisclosed (no announcement from the stage, no stated reason or bio note on the little slip in the program), at my performance (Nov.7) he did not appear, and his place was taken by Rafael Davila. The latter possesses vocal substance more of the sort we would normally associate with Carlo’s music than had Matthew Polenzani—rather the same sort as some of the darker, larger voices mentioned in our baritenor discussion above—but in a not-yet-finished technical state. He hung in there, hit his marks, and produced his most controlled vocalism in the final scene; beyond that, I’d prefer to evaluate him under more propitious circumstances.

The female principals were also substitutions, but on more advanced alert. Advertised in the season brochure were Anna Netrebko (Elisabetta) and Anita Rachvelishvili (Eboli), the former banished months since for failing to gnaw on the hand that’s fed her, and the latter absent, on the company’s initiative or her own (again, no clarification I’ve heard about), for what must surely be related cause. So in the event, we had soprano Eleonora Buratto and mezzo-soprano Yulia Matochkina (a Russian, but evidently a de-Putinized one). Buratto has been singing Butterflys, Donna Annas, Anna Bolenas, and such of late. But I last heard her as Norina, in which role she had succeeded Netrebko, whose brand of pizzazz made her a tough act to follow in such an assignment. In a world in which we could afford to not grade on quite so steep a curve, Buratto’s voice would be heard as somewhere near the midpoint in quality and calibre between a Norina and an Elisabetta, and in decent but not impeccable technical condition. In other words, she was most welcome as an Elisabetta of our real world. Her voice is a full lyric soprano with dashes of spinto and an appealing Italianate timbre that includes moments of brightness. It’s under steady guidance throughout most of her range—prevailingly good intonation and balance, enough dynamic control to traverse the descending-from-on-high piano phrases that are characteristic of the part (in the farewell to the Countess of Aremberg, the Closet Scene Quartet, and the cadential lines of “Tu che le vanità“)—and while such a voice does not give us the ultimate sweep of the climactic lines of that Act 4 aria, it comes close enough to convey some feel of their grandeur. She activates an occasional chest voice, musically cultivated, at the very bottom of her range, but shyly, and not high enough to either give her a “break” problem (bad) or to mix in bracingly with her weak lower-middle notes (good). She was as dramatically alive and responsive as the direction would allow (see below). Angela Meade, who certainly has the vocal basics for a good Elisabetta, will take over the role in later performances.