The Metropolitan Opera was aflutter Monday night with the premiere of Massenet's Thais, a slim thing brought down from the brittle archives of the operatic repertoire twice every, oh, half century or so. The regular opera-going crowd was agog with the actual celebrities in their midst: some opera-loving actors (John Lithgow, Sigourney Weaver, Christine Baranski) and Vogue's beleaguered editrix Anna Wintour, who notably fled after Act II.
Renee Fleming was indeed absolutely radiant, a thrilling performer with radiant tone. She also did a commendable acting job, given the pretty severe limitations of the Gallet libretto. (Thais: "I'm getting old!" Athanael: "Why not be the bride of Christ?" Thais: "Okay! Thank you!") I got the feeling that Athanael's fire-and-brimstone tirades were far more appealing to Thomas Hampson than the character's descent into moral desuetude, but when he was on, he was *on.*
The Met has no pretensions to being a paragon of postcolonial correctness, but this John Cox production had its moments of historical and geographical mash-up hilarity, much of it in the well-worn exotica orientalia variety. After all, why shouldn't one of the hangers-on (Crobyle? Myrtale? I lost track) march into Act II of an opera set in 4th-century CE Egypt bearing a modern Indian sitar?
Renee had her Christian Lacroix costumes, the rest of the party-hearty Alexandrians were dressed in 19th-century French colonial style, the desert monks in the earliest of ascetic wear (complete with horrendously heavy-looking dreadlock wigs)--and of course there was the 21st-century Cairo cabaret-ready dancing girl. I mistakenly assumed that she was some Met corps dancer drafted into a rough approximation of belly dancing, but no--apparently she's a professional with a very spiffy website and nice hip shimmies, though far less impressive upper-body isolation. Anyway... (ETA: Despite the credit listed in Playbill, an unnamed replacement performer apparently stepped in at the last minute. See Sira Melikian's comment below; she's the dancer who was originally slated to perform, and whose website is linked above.)
Despite the Egypt-mania of Western culture (with Aida as the example par excellence), the cosmopolitan port city of Alexandria is not exactly a common setting in opera, aside from Thais. (Note to Justin: We actually did forget one, if we counted oratorios--there's also Handel's Theodora.) I admit that, in the name of philopatria (or philopolia? is that a word?), just maybe I feel a little territorial about what happens to be my ancestral city. But it would be nice to see the Pearl of the Mediterranean given slightly better treatment.