At Least the Sofa Looks Fabulous

The Met's Fedora starts the year on a note of ho-hum.

- JUSTIN DAVIDSON

FEDORA  IS AN opera about décor. It stars a Russian palace, a Parisian salon, and an alpine villa in Switzerland with costumes to match the various forms of splendor. The clothes need singers to wear them, of course, and the rooms look better when filled with music. The corollary is that the score sounds juiciest when the opulence is sufficiently excessive, and David McVicar’s new production for the Metropolitan Opera gets partway to the right degree of too much. Charles Edwards’s sets offer a whole catalogue of coffered ceilings, gilt-trimmed circular sofas, and diamond-patterned wall coverings to go with Brigitte Reiffenstuel’s glittery gowns and tiaras. But a downmarket feeling creeps in as bits of one act’s mansion get recycled for the next one. By the time the troubled couple of Russian expats, dressed in country whites, retreat to the mountains in Act Three, they seem to have landed in a pleasantly airy, if slightly neglected, Airbnb.