Barton's mezzo soprano exhibited a brightness and fluid flexibility throughout its range, achieving a range of colors without ever turning dusky.
The "dream team" pairing almost didn't happen this time either until the withdrawal of another artist last week, Barton, the recent winner of the prestigious BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, was not even scheduled to sing in San Francisco. Any lingering "what ifs" were laid to rest at the San Francisco Opera opener. The only mitigating factor was the unrealized hope that the Adalgisa from the alternate cast, Jamie Barton, who was also causing quite a stir, would get paired with Radvanovsky. While many of us could only compare her portrayal with a less distinguished roster of aspirants from the 1990s and 2000s, it was clear that something extraordinary had happened that night. My companion, who heard them all, remarked at the time, "She is not as interesting on stage as Callas, but no one has ever sung it so beautifully". Last fall, Radvanovsky's triumph as Norma at the Metropolitan Opera arguably established her in the legendary company of Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, Shirley Verrett, and Rita Hunter. While the evening, as a whole, may not have met the sky-high expectations, the artist at the center of the enterprise exceeded them. Surrounding her with a new production by Kevin Newbury, a superb Adalgisa in young mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, and the company's music director Nicola Luisotti in the pit, the momentous opening night was a fitting inaugural for what is clearly the company's most ambitious season in years. San Francisco Opera elected to open its 92nd season with Norma because they had just such a singer in soprano Sondra Radvanovsky.
Notoriously difficult to cast, Bellini's Norma would scarcely be worth mounting at all without a soprano who could manage the title role's tremendous artistic and technical demands.
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