Sunday, Eve Queler led the Opera Orchestra of New York in a concert performance of Donizetti's first international success – Anna Bolena. Amazingly this was Donizetti's 30th opera. Maestra Queler led a performance so severely cut that I checked the program for an anesthesiologist and a surgeon, but neither received a credit. The audience knew they didn't have to worry about missing the last train to Long Island when Queler started the performance by omitting both the overture and the initial chorus. In fact, almost all the choruses were slashed. Anna Bolena is, in my view, the weakest of the so called Three Queens operas - the other two are Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux. Nevertheless Donizetti's score contains lots of beautiful and exciting music. The biggest problem with opera is its libretto. The opera starts with Henry VIII hating Anne before a note has been played. As the opera progresses he loathes her with ever increasing implacable disgust. If you thought Puccini tortured his heroines give Anna Bolena a read for real agony – three plus hours (uncut) of unadulterated drive the soprano crazy, which finally happens at the opera's end. Queler, who deserves considerable credit for performing unfamiliar works worthy of a new hearing and for introducing many fine voices to New York, is a pedestrian conductor. While she kept everybody together, she didn't get all of the excitement out of the piece that's there for the conducting. She also took Vivi tu at too fast a tempo for tenor Yeghishe Manucharyan forcing him to phrase the aria with far less subtlety than I suspected he wished. Manucharyan, a native of Yerevan, Armenia, made his company debut as Percy – quaintly transformed in Italian pronunciation to "perSEE." He has a small lyric voice with a little buzz in it. He can trill and managed the role's high notes without coming to grief. He's unlikely to become a major artist.

Krassimira Stoyanova sang the title role. She has a poignant lyric voice which brought out much of the part's pathos. There was so much pathos that she seemed to be singing Puccini rather than Donizetti. She received an ovation for Al dolce guidami, though she wasn't quite up to all of Donizetti's ornamentation. Still, it was an affecting performance.

Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Larmore was fine as Jane Seymour, but I had expected more than fine. Her tone is beginning to lose focus. She was upstaged by the outstanding performance of the young American mezzo Kate Aldrich who sang Smeton. Wearing trousers in a trouser role, she displayed a large, fully controlled voice in a petite body. Her cavatina in scene three of Act 1 was the best sung number of the night.

James Morris who's been practicing villainy for more than 30 years was appropriately nasty as the lecherous king. But nobody goes to Anna Bolena to hear the bass. Derrick Ballard sang Lord Rochfort. Guillermo Lagundino replaced Martin Dillon as Hervey. A nice evening of Italian opera, but nothing for the highlight scrapbook.

Hard facts:
• Benvenuto Cellini - 12 December 2003, the Metropolitan Opera. James Levine, conductor · Teresa: Isabel Bayrakdarian · Ascanio: Kristine Jepson · Benvenuto Cellini: Marcello Giordani · Fieramosca: Alan Opie · Balducci: John Del Carlo · Pope Clément VII: Robert Lloyd.
• La Juive - 13 December 2003, the Metropolitan Opera. Marcello Viotti, conductor. Rachel: Soile Isokoski · Princess Eudoxie: Elizabeth Futral · Eléazar: Neil Shicoff · Léopold: Eric Cutler · Cardinal Brogni: Ferruccio Furlanetto.
• Anna Bolena - 14 December 2003, New York Carnegie Hall. Eve Queler / the Opera Orchestra of New York. Anna Bolena: Krassimira Stoyanova · Jane Seymour: Jennifer Larmore · Smeton: Kate Aldrich · Percy: Yeghishe Manucharyan · The King: James Morris.