Review: A REGIMENT with Comic Style and High Notes, Thanks to Morley and Brownlee at the Met

It’s hard for a soprano to get a break in Donizetti’s LA FILLE DU REGIMENT, which I caught up with at the Met on Friday evening.  Not that Marie—the role of the title, sung at the Met by Erin Morley—doesn’t have some gorgeous music and shenanigans to show off her musical and comic chops in the now-classic Laurent Pelly production.

But it’s difficult for the audience to get past “Ah, mes amis,” the spectacular tenor aria featuring nine High C’s, which was done wonderfully here by Lawrence Brownlee. He’s an endearing actor and a powerhouse in bel canto roles like this one, Tonio, the villager who falls for Marie and even joins the army to be closer to her.

However, Morley didn’t roll over and play dead while he got all the attention. Hardly. As the mascot of the regiment, who was adopted by them as a fledgling, she played second fiddle to no one.

I’ve always thought of her one of the treasures that the Met overlooked, with good though nonstarry roles like Pamina in DIE ZAUBERFLOTE or the two Sophies (ROSENKAVALIER and WERTHER). I felt even more so after hearing her at Barcelona’s Liceu in Handel’s ALCINA, where she showed off her charming voice and captured the audience with what seemed like little effort.

She put those same superlative talents to good use as the Met’s Marie. Of course, much credit must go to the production’s creator Pelly, who is a master of comic style (the Met should bring his IL TURCO IN ITALIA, which I saw with Lisette Oropesa in Madrid).

Whether folding laundry—a throwaway piece of comic business that was a masterclass of hilarity—or singing “Il faut partir,” a gorgeous. low key followup to “Ah, mes amis”; being “daughter” of the regiment or making a silly entrance to the sitting room of the Marquise de Berkenfield (mezzo Susan Graham), who discovers Marie is her long lost “niece”/daughter, Morley did great work.

Of course, the show is more than Morley, and Brownlee (who also excelled in “Pour me rapprocher”), though they melded (as in “Quoi vous m’aimez”) together to bring it off. (It didn’t hurt that they’d just recorded an album of arias by Donizetti, Rossini, Bizet, Delibes and Verdi.)

Bass-baritone Peter Kalman was a fine comic foil as Sgt. Sulpice, though I missed his spot-on patter singing that was showcased in his Met debut, BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA, earlier this year. Still he was a fine addition to the principals, along with Graham’s Marquise and Sandra Oh’s non-singing cameo as the Duchesse of Krakenthorp, which was starpower incarnate.

The chorus was in fine fettle as all those fathers of Marie in the army and the guests of the Marquise, under Tillman Michael. The Met orchestra did some lovely work, though I thought conductor Giacomo Sagripanti tried to make the start of the opera sound a little too light and “French”; bel canto style not withstanding, it may be written in French (librettists Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint Georges and Jean-Francois-Alfred Bayard) but the composer is the Italian Donizetti.

In all, it was a fine evening at the Met and made me wish there were more comic pieces in the Met's regular repertoire alongside the tragedies that are the company’s bread and butter.

Caption: Erin Morley and Lawrence Brownlee

Photo credit: Karen Almond/Met Opera

There are three more performances of Donizetti’s LA FILLE DU REGIMENT, this coming Monday, November 3 through November 12. For more information and tickets, see the Met’s website