Javier Camarena Does It Again

[lennygoran]

Oops, he did it again. The dazzling Mexican bel canto tenor Javier Camarena earned another rare encore at the Metropolitan Opera during Saturday afternoon’s performance of Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale,” which was broadcast live on the radio.


It was the third encore he has sung at the Met, an honor that has only been awarded in modern memory to two other singers: Luciano Pavarotti, who sang one during a performance of Puccini’s “Tosca” in 1994 and Juan Diego Flórez, who has sung several in recent years. (The Met chorus has performed encores of the famous “Va, pensiero” chorus in Verdi’s “Nabucco,” and some productions incorporate planned repeats of certain sections.) There was a time when Met programs warned, in capital letters, “Positively no encores allowed.”

Saturday’s came when Mr. Camarena received rapturous applause after singing the famous second act aria “Povero Ernesto...Cercherò lontana terra,” and he was prevailed upon to sing a repeat of the final section, which is capped by a high D flat.

There had been some speculation that something like that might happen before the run of “Don Pasquale” ended. In his review of the opera in The New York Times, Anthony Tommasini wrote that Mr. Camarena had “excitedly sang the elaborate bel canto aria ‘E se fia che ad altro oggetto,’ capped by a fearless high D flat” and that “the audience broke into such a frenzied ovation that I thought he just might return for an encore performance.

“That’s what the audience clearly wanted,” Mr. Tommasini wrote. “But he stayed backstage as the staging dictated, and the performance continued.”

Not so on Saturday. His encore during the radio broadcast was Mr. Camarena’s third at the Met. In 2014, while filling in for Mr. Flórez in Rossini’s “La Cenerentola,” he got such a thunderous ovation for performances of the bravura aria “Si, ritrovarla io guiro,” that he was compelled to sing encores.

There are two more performances left of “Don Pasquale,” on Tuesday and Friday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/12/arts/ ... rc=me&_r=0

Regards, Len

[maestrob]

Wonderful!

[josé echenique]

I just hope people appreciated the wonderful mezza voce and the musicianship, not only the high D at the end of the cabaletta.

[John F]

Seems to me that only the first encore is sure to have been entirely spontaneous. Once the word got around, successive audiences would give a big ovation expecting an encore - why not? - and the singer and conductor would have been prepared to give it.

[stenka razin]

Len, Camarena is on a roll lately and I think that is fabulous. What a wonderful voice, m8.


Regards,
Mel