“Fedora,” the 1898 opera by Umberto Giordano, has long struggled to win over modern audiences. The libretto is clumsy; the plot, about a Russian princess who falls in love with the man who murdered her fiancé, is distant and tangled; and the music, save for a short aria, has largely faded from the standard repertory.
But a new production opening on Saturday at the Metropolitan Opera aims to give it fresh appeal, by focusing on the characters’ inner struggles — with the help of a ghostlike figure — and channeling its murder-mystery sensibility.
“I’m not going to pretend that this is a neglected masterpiece,” David McVicar, who directs the production, said between recent rehearsals. “But it is an extremely effective piece of music theater that has a validity and a strength and passion all of its own.”
McVicar compares the task of reimagining “Fedora,” a frenzied opera that requires precise stagework, to restoring a grandfather clock, and his production is full of luxurious touches. There is a starry cast, with the soprano Sonya Yoncheva in the title role opposite the tenor Piotr Beczala, who plays the murderous Count Loris. There are majestic sets by Charles Edwards and elegant costumes by Brigitte Reiffenstuel as the action moves from a St. Petersburg palace to a Parisian salon to the Swiss Alps. And there is a fidelity to detail; even the Russian telegrams of the 1880s have been meticulously researched to ensure the right look.
The stakes for the Met’s new “Fedora” are high. The company last staged the opera, a well-worn diva vehicle, 25 years ago, when it was the occasion for the superstar soprano Mirella Freni’s final full-opera Met performances. The new production will debut at the Met’s New Year’s Eve gala, one of the most scrutinized events of the season.
“Fedora” might not be typical New Year’s fare, but the Met hopes it will intrigue audiences at a time when the company is struggling with tepid ticket sales and other financial problems amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“The whole confection is a sort of an operatic guilty pleasure,” McVicar said, comparing the production to binge-watching a season of “Downton Abbey.” “It has a sort of misty, nostalgic, schmaltzy appeal.”
“Fedora,” a verismo opera set against the backdrop of anticzarist uprisings in Russia in the 1880s, was a hit when it debuted in Milan, praised for its lush score and fast-paced drama. It was Giordano’s fifth opera, following the success of his best-known work, “Andrea Chénier.”
But in the decades after its premiere, “Fedora,” based on a play by Sardou, fell out of favor, written off by critics as a crowd-pleasing melodrama lacking in substance and artistry. After its American premiere at the Met in 1906, the opera was performed sporadically; it returned to the Met stage in 1996 after a 70-year absence.
When the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, several years ago proposed a new production of “Fedora,” McVicar was hesitant. He believed that the opera “lacked a sheer sense of dramaturgy and storytelling,” and that the libretto, by the Italian journalist Arturo Colautti, was weak. But he was persuaded after he came to understand that the opera was written to appeal to the masses. “Fedora” will be his 13th production on the Met’s stage.
“You have to respect that its ambitions are quite low,” McVicar said. “It simply wants to be an evening of delicious entertainment. I like the honesty of that.”
The first challenge was sorting out the plot, a topsy-turvy tale of love, betrayal and politics that involves the secret police, an endless stream of letters and telegrams and a poison-filled necklace. The three-act opera is dense and at times chaotic, lasting about two hours.
When rehearsals at the Met started in late November, even Yoncheva, who had performed the role of Fedora in a different production at Teatro alla Scala this year, acknowledged that she was confused.
“It took me the entire production at La Scala and then starting rehearsals on this one before I fully understood the plot,” she said. “It’s a very complicated story, so one should understand what is happening.”
Yoncheva said that while Fedora could be seen as imperious and remote, she had tried to highlight the character’s vulnerability.
“She seeks love, and she wants to be loved and to give love,” she said. “Her principal engine is the passion that she feels.”
To help make sense of the plot, McVicar made a point of highlighting the internal conflict of the characters. Adding the ghostlike figure of Fedora’s fiancé, who haunts the stage, is a way of shedding light on her state of mind and explaining how she could form an attachment to Count Loris, the man who killed him.
“I wanted to explore the memory of that relationship — how intense it was for her, and to explain some of the complexities of her emotional response to her new lover,” he said.
“Fedora” has endured in part because of its rich and expressive score. The music is accessible and energetic, said the conductor Marco Armiliato, who leads the production.
“It’s not necessary to know all the pieces before — you can get the feeling even if you are listening for the first time,” he said. “It’s one of the operas that goes directly to the heart of the people.”
One aria, “Amor ti vieta,” stands out: It has long been a favorite among tenors, including Enrico Caruso, Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo.
Beczala, who has performed the aria in concerts and recordings but will make his debut in the role of Count Loris at the Met, said he had been captivated by the opera’s energy, comparing it to a thriller by Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum.
“It’s like a crime movie,” he said.
Beczala said the challenge of the opera was moving quickly between emotional states amid the frantic plot.
“It’s not easy to change the tension on the stage in 10 seconds, from hate to love and from love to hate,” he said. “I had to figure out how to get around some corners.”
While McVicar started out as a skeptic of “Fedora,” he said he had become an admirer. He said he managed to find a way through the opera’s difficulties by treating it with the respect he would give a great work by Wagner or Mozart.
“It’s cracking theater,” he said. “Let’s love it and bring it to life. If you do that, it has an energy and drama all of its own.”
