The title role of Bellini’s Norma is one of the most challenging roles in the female repertory. It has been called the most profound portrayal of womanhood in all of opera. It demands a dramatic coloratura soprano with immense vocal power, rare agility, a wide dynamic range, a broad palette of vocal coloration, and instinctive theatricality. Every vocal embellishment, every feat of vocal pyrotechnics must be made to convey dramatic meaning. Bel canto finesse must unite with romantic passion.
Ever since she won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2007 singing “Casta Diva”, young American soprano Angela Meade has been hyped as a potential successor to Norma’s foremost interpreters. On Saturday night, Meade made her stage debut as the doomed Druidic priestess in a new production at the Washington National Opera. The question in the minds of many was whether the world of opera, ever starved for new genuine talent, had discovered a worthy inheritor of the legacy of Giuditta Pasta and Maria Callas.
Based on the opening night performance, the answer, alas, is no. At least, not yet.
Meade, unquestionably, possesses an impressive vocal instrument. She exhibited a rich timbre, wide dynamic range, genuine spinto power, and tireless vocal stamina. She rode the orchestra with natural ease, delivered some thrilling top notes, showed off a ravishing mezza voce, and floated some lovely pianissimo tones. Her wide vibrato occasionally blurred the fioriture, particularly in Act I, but otherwise she handled the coloratura passages with commendable accuracy, if not the most flexibility. It was an often dazzling, often beautiful vocal exhibition.
And yet, for all of Meade’s technical virtuosity, her vocal and dramatic interpretation was phlegmatic, unimaginative, and uninvolving. She painted with a limited, almost monochromatic vocal palette, failing to capture the mercurial shifts between light and shade. She did not inhabit the extremes of Norma’s emotions, favoring mildness while forsaking madness and ecstasy. Her Norma was matronly and emotionally tepid rather than fearsome, imperious, passionate, and spine-chilling. Only in the finale did Meade display flashes of her character’s formidable theatrical power.
Richard Wagner once famously praised Bellini’s work for being “intimately bound up with the words”. Meade’s performance, in contrast, was fundamentally shaped by the notes rather than the words. Vocal embellishment did not consistently yield dramatic nuance, and Bellini’s lines rarely took full, expressive flight. One can only hope that given all of her obvious vocal gifts, Meade will deepen her interpretation over time. But she is not yet the great singing actress for whom the world has been waiting.