United States Bellini, I Puritani: Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera / Marco Armiliato (conductor). Metropolitan Opera, New York, 3.1.2026. (RP)
The Metropolitan Opera rang in the New Year with a new production of Bellini’s I Puritani by British stage designer Charles Edwards. There was a full house for the second performance two evenings later and a large number of younger people in the audience. A seasoned opera veteran sitting next to me, observing the scene, remarked quizzically – ‘For I Puritani?’ The answer may lie in the glorious music and the excellent cast.
The Met has mounted Bellini’s final opera 63 times, including a few performances on tour in the early part of the twentieth century. The Edwards production is only the third in the company’s history, with the prior two running for about fifty years each. Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, called the new production ‘a retro move’. It is Edwards’s first complete production for the Met, although he has designed sets for others. He anchored the story in seventeenth-century England but with a stab, dare one say, at contemporary relevance.
The final chapter of the English Civil War serves as the backdrop for I Puritani, but there is scant history in it. Edwards correctly surmised that Americans know little about the era, so a timeline of events is projected on the stage curtain throughout the opera. It is a lifeline for those trying to make historical sense of a story that is basically a love triangle, complete with mistaken identities, madness and a surprise happy ending, set against the backdrop of the Puritan-Royalist conflict.
The action is set in a barn-like Puritan church dominated by a high pulpit. It is a sober, functional space with no Catholic decorative excesses. The Puritans are dressed in somber black and white garb. The only ornamentation is Charles the First’s coat of arms on the Talbot family pew and the pale blue finery of Arturo (Lord Arthur Talbot), the son of a staunch Royalist.
In keeping with his penchant for connecting the dots, Edwards provides a backstory to the relationship between Arturo and Elvira, the daughter of the Puritan commander Gualtiero (Lord Walter Walton). Younger versions of Arturo and Elvira appear throughout the opera, signaling that they have loved each other their entire lives and offering a clue as to why Elvira goes off the deep end when she thinks Arturo has run off with another woman.
The other woman, unbeknownst to Elvira, is Enrichetta di Francia (Henrietta Maria of France, Queen of England and Scotland, and the widow of the beheaded Charles I), who is being kept prisoner by the Puritans. Elvira has befriended Enrichetta and taken to sketching her portrait. When Arturo assists the queen in escaping, Elvira assumes he has abandoned her and expresses her anguish by painting countless disturbing images of Enrichetta’s face. Stylistically, the paintings, with their cubist sensibilities, are incongruous, and the sheer number of them is overkill.
Edwards also leans into Little Englander bravado with equally mixed results. When Riccardo (Sir Richard Forth), the Puritan commander to whom Gualtiero has promised his daughter’s hand in marriage, and Giorgio (Sir George Walton and Elvira’s uncle) prepare to do battle with the Royalists, they paint themselves up with the St. George’s Cross Flag which is also the Flag of England. Was Edwards conjuring Celtic warriors à la Braveheart or modern-day football fans? At the end of the opera, documents bearing the Cross of St. George delivering the news of the Puritans’ ultimate victory over the Royalists rained down inside the church. It was akin to manna falling from heaven but totally inexplicable.
Bellini composed I Puritani for four of the finest singers of the day – Pasta, Rubini, Lablache and Tamburini – and the Met has assembled a similarly stellar cast. As Elvira, Lisette Oropesa spun out Bellini’s melodies and flowing lines with the utmost care. ‘Son vergin vezzosa’ was a joyous expression of love captured in fleet, bubbling coloratura and luminous high notes. When Elvira gave voice to her shattered mental state in ‘Qui la voce … Vien, diletto’, Oropesa employed those same vocal skills and musicality to express total despair.
Lawrence Brownlee was in glorious voice as Arturo. His silvery tenor imbued ‘A te, o cara’ with elegance and passion. Brownlee and Oropesa bewitched with the richness of their voices in ‘Vieni fra queste braccia’. The tenor, to his credit, floated rather than screamed the notoriously difficult high F in the final quartet, ‘Credeasi, misera’.
Artur Ruciński triumphed with his deeply human Riccardo. Although never lacking in substance, the baritone sang of his sorrow over Elvira’s love for another man in ‘Ah! Per sempre … Bel sogno beato’ in an emotionally penetrating parlando-style. When bravura was needed, Ruciński joined Christian Van Horn’s Giorgio in a resounding ‘Suoni la tromba’, proclaiming their battle cry of country, victory and honor. Van Horn’s bass-baritone was as rock solid as his physique, on full display stripped down to the waist and painted for battle.
As Enrichetta, Eve Gigliotti displayed her customary dramatic flair and rich mezzo-soprano. When she ventured into the lower ranges of her voice, the sound was vibrant and exciting. Along with the younger versions of Elvira and Arturo, performed by Taylor Massa and DeAundre Addison, Edwards introduced the non-singing role of Lord Talbot, which Broadway veteran Richard E. Waits embodied with dignity.
The Met Chorus sounded wonderful in Bellini’s superb choral scenes. Edwards did not show much creativity with chorus placement, and putting them in pews much of the time was a perfect solution.
There was an ochre cast to the Edwards sets which the Met Orchestra captured in sound. Of special note was the rich, honeyed playing of the horns. Marco Armiliato led a performance that was perfectly paced, in which Bellini’s musical lines and the emotions that they convey emerged seamlessly and naturally. Musically, the performance was peerless. Edwards’s concept, with some of its excesses trimmed, could easily do duty for the next fifty years if history serves as a guide.
Rick Perdian
Featured Image: Lisette Oropesa (Elvira) and Lawrence Brownlee (Arturo) in Bellini’s I Puritani © Ken Howard/Met Opera
Production:
Production & Sets – Charles Edwards
Costumes – Gabrielle Dalton
Lighting – Tim Mitchell
Movement director – Tim Claydon
Chorus director – Tilman Michael
Cast:
Bruno – Tony Stevenson
Riccardo – Artur Ruciński
Young Arturo – DeAundre Addison
Young Elvira – Taylor Massa
Lord Talbot – Richard E. Waits
Elvira – Lisette Oropesa
Giorgio – Christian Van Horn
Arturo – Lawrence Brownlee
Gualtiero – David Pittsinger
Enrichetta – Eve Gigliotti