Mravinsky's Leningrad Philharmonic vs. Today's Met Opera: A Conductor's Lament

A critic reflects on the decline of orchestral performance, contrasting the 1965 Leningrad Philharmonic under Yevgeny Mravinsky with a recent lackluster Metropolitan Opera production of La traviata. The author attended a listless La traviata at the Met, weakly cast, with precise but emotionally empty playing. He contrasts this with a 1935 Met broadcast of La traviata featuring Rosa Ponselle, Lawrence Tibbett, and Frederick Jagel, conducted by Ettore Panizza, where the orchestra was a full dramatic partner. The author recalls that ca. 1930 most Met orchestra members were Italian, intimately familiar with Verdi. He notes the last world-class Met orchestra performance he heard was Daniele Gatti's Parsifal in 2013. He also recalls Herbert von Karajan's Met performances of Das Rheingold and Die Walkure with Regine Crespin, Jon Vickers, and Birgit Nilsson, the Bolshoi Opera Orchestra in 1975, and Valery Gergiev's Mariinski Orchestra. The author ends with a prediction that singular ensembles like Mravinsky's will not be reborn, citing social media and AI as challenges.