The soprano Kathleen Kim brought a nimble and golden voice to the part, and finely honed physical comedy. Levine’s tempos sometimes felt hurried, as in the Act II showdown between Osmin and Blondchen, the English servant girl who had been gifted to him by the Pasha but who read him the riot act when he attempted to make sexual advances.
There were coordination problems in some of the fast scenes, such as Osmin’s rage aria in Act I, in which the whiplike percussive accents from the orchestra lagged behind.Īnd Mr. With its breezy mix of opera seria and slapstick, Turkish pastiche and Enlightenment denouement, “Abduction” can be a tough piece to pull together. The bass Hans-Peter König, magnificent in the role of the irascible palace overseer Osmin, made a sly change to spoken dialogue in which Osmin invokes the authority of the dungeon master, or Stockmeister, substituting the word “Kapellmeister” - conductor - with a wink in the direction of Mr. And one cast member ad-libbed a tribute of his own. Levine, 72, each time he took up position in the pit. For the conductor James Levine, this run of performances marks his final appearances as music director of a house he profoundly transformed during the four decades he held that position.Įxtended ovations greeted Mr. A role debut and the start of a farewell run piqued attention on Friday when the Metropolitan Opera revived its Ottoman eye-candy production of Mozart’s “ Abduction From the Seraglio.” For the Russian soprano Albina Shagimuratova, it was her first turn in the bravura role of Konstanze, the noblewoman whose fidelity is tested when she is abducted and sold into Turkish slavery.
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