House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., left, with Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, head into a closed-door …Updated 11:38 pm ET
The House of Representatives late Tuesday easily approved emergency bipartisan legislation sparing all but a sliver of America’s richest from sharp income tax hikes -- while setting up another “fiscal cliff” confrontation in a matter of weeks.
Lawmakers voted 257-167 to send the compromise to President Barack Obama to sign into law. Eighty-five Republicans and 172 Democrats backed the bill, which had sailed through the Senate by a lopsided 89-8 margin shortly after 2 a.m. Opposition comprised 151 Republicans and 16 Democrats.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner voted in favor of the deal, as did House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, his party's failed vice presidential candidate. But Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy voted against it.
Obama, speaking from the White House briefing room shortly after the vote, praised lawmakers for coming together to avert a tax increase that “could have sent the economy back into a recession.”
“A central premise of my campaign for president was the change the tax code that was too skewed toward the wealthy at the expense of working, middle-class Americans. Tonight, we’ve done that,” the president said.
But he signaled that the legislation was “just one step in the broader effort” of getting the nation’s finances in order while boosting growth and job creation.
“The deficit is still too high,” he said, warning Republicans that he would stick with his demands for a “balanced” approach blending spending cuts with revenue increases, notably from the rich and wealthy corporations.
Republicans vowed a renewed focus on cutting government outlays.
“Now the focus turns to spending,” Boehner said, vowing his party would “hold the president accountable for the balanced approach he promised, meaning significant spending cuts and reforms to the entitlement programs that are driving our country deeper and deeper into debt.”
As debate began, Republican House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp heralded “a legacy vote” that amounted to a victory for his party because Democrats agreed to make permanent the tax cuts his party enacted in 2001 and 2003. Camp called the bill a step towards reforming the country’s “nightmare” tax code and described it as the largest tax cut in history.
Representative Sander Levin, the top Democrat on Camp’s committee, claimed victory because the vote shattered “the iron barrier” Republicans maintained for 20 years against raising taxes.
It fell to Democratic Representative Charlie Rangel to admit “this is no profile in courage for me to be voting for this bill” because “we created this monster.”
The polarized House approved the measure, unchanged, after House Republican leaders beat back a day-long insurrection within their ranks fueled by conservative anger at the bill’s lack of spending cuts. A final vote was expected late Tuesday evening.
“They’re crazy, but they’re not that batshit crazy,” Democratic Representative Alcee Hastings told reporters as the Republican plan came into focus.
Hastings’s blunt assessment came after a day in which Republican leaders at times seemed to be as much political arsonists as firefighters in the face of rank-and-file GOP anger at the bill.
The House seemed on track to torch the legislation, a hard-fought bipartisan bill crafted by Vice President Joe Biden and McConnell that sailed through the Senate by a lopsided 89-8 margin in a vote shortly after 2 a.m.
The compromise bill averts the sharpest tax increase in American history. But it hikes rates on income above $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for households, while exemptions and deductions the wealthiest Americans use to reduce their tax bill face new limits. The accord also raises the taxes paid on large inheritances from 35% to 40% for estates over $5 million. And it extends by one year unemployment benefits for some two million Americans. It also prevents cuts in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients and spares tens of millions of Americans who otherwise would have been hit with the Alternative Minimum Tax. And it extends some stimulus-era tax breaks championed by progressives.
The middle class will still see its taxes go up: The final deal did not include an extension of the payroll tax holiday. A report released by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office Tuesday complicated matters further. It said that the Senate-passed compromise would add nearly $4 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years.
Despite the overwhelming Senate vote, the accord landed with a thud in the House, where Cantor surprised lawmakers by coming out flatly against the deal during a morning closed-door meeting of House Republicans. Cantor’s announcement fueled conservative anger at the absence of spending cuts in a measure that had originally been considered a likely vehicle for at least some deficit-reduction. The results fed fears that the legislation was doomed.
Republican leadership aides played down the drama by insisting that “the lack of spending cuts in the Senate bill was a universal concern amongst members in today’s meeting.”
After grappling with the insurrection all day, Republican leaders gave their fractious caucus a choice during an emergency 5:15 p.m. meeting: Try to amend it or go for a straight up-or-down vote on the original deal.
Cantor and Boehner “cautioned members about the risk in such a strategy,” according to a GOP leadership aide.
House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, emerging from the gathering, bluntly told reporters “it’s pretty obvious” that amending the legislation and sending it back to the Senate would kill it. Democrats and Republicans in the upper chamber had signaled that lawmakers there would not take up a modified version of what was already a difficult deal.
The resulting pressure on GOP leaders was immense: Absent action to avert the fiscal cliff, Americans would face hefty across-the-board income-tax hikes, while indiscriminate spending cuts risked devastating domestic and defense programs. Skittish financial markets were watching the dysfunction in Washington carefully amid warnings that going off the so-called cliff could plunge the fragile economy into a new recession.
Defeat would have handed Boehner a fresh embarrassment by blocking a measure he explicitly asked the Senate and White House to negotiate without him but vowed to act on if Republicans and Democrats could reach a deal. Public opinion polls had shown that Republicans would have borne the brunt of the blame for fiscal cliff-related economic pain.
Republicans had also fretted about the message if final passage came on the back of a majority of Democratic votes, a tricky thing for Boehner two days before he faces reelection as speaker. (In the hours before the vote, conservative lawmakers played down the risks of a rebellion against the Ohio lawmaker).
Time ran short for another reason: A new Congress will take office at noon on Thursday, forcing efforts to craft a compromise by the current Congress back to the drawing board.
Efforts to modify the first installment of $1.2 trillion in cuts to domestic and defense programs over 10 years -- the other portion of the “fiscal cliff,” known as sequestration -- had proved a sticking point late in the game. Democrats had sought a year-long freeze but ultimately caved to Republican pressure and signed on to just a two-month delay while broader deficit-reduction talks continue.
That would put the next major battle over spending cuts right around the time that the White House and its Republican foes are battling it out over whether to raise the country's debt limit.
Republicans have vowed to push for more spending cuts, equivalent to the amount of new borrowing. Obama has vowed not to negotiate as he did in 2011, when a bruising fight threatened the first-ever default on America's obligations and resulted in the first-ever downgrade of the country's credit rating.
“I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they have already racked up through the laws that they passed,” he warned Tuesday. “The consequences for the entire global economy would be catastrophic.”
The president then left for Hawaii to rejoin his family on vacation.
As House Republicans raged at the bill, key House Democrats emerging from a closed-door meeting with Biden expressed support for the compromise and pressed Boehner for a vote on the legislation as written.
“Our Speaker has said when the Senate acts, we will have a vote in the House. That is what he said, that is what we expect, that is what the American people deserve…a straight up-or-down vote,” Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters.
Conservative activist organizations like the anti-tax Club for Growth warned lawmakers to oppose the compromise. The Club charged in a message to Congress that “this bill raises taxes immediately with the promise of cutting spending later.”
President Barack Obama had previously declared that “this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay.”
There were signs that the 2016 presidential race shaped the outcome in the Senate. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, widely thought to have his eye on his party’s nomination, voted no. Republican Senator Rand Paul, who could take up the libertarian mantle of his father Ron Paul, did as well.
In a sign of deep GOP unease over the legislation, Republican leaders Boehner, Cantor, and McCarthy did not speak during the debate. Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and James Clyburn all did.
Biden's visit -- his second to Congressional Democrats in two days -- aimed to soothe concerns about the bill and about the coming battles on deficit reduction.
“This is a simple case of trying to Make sure that the perfect does not become the enemy of the good,” said Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings, one of the chamber’s most steadfast liberals. “Nobody’s going to like everything about it.”
Asked whether House progressives, who had hoped for a lower income threshold, would back the bill, Cummings said he could not predict but stressed: “I am one of the most progressive members, and I will vote for it.”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Setting a looming deadline to avert self-created calamity has become a frequent device for the U.S. Congress to get things done in recent years. When all else fails, as it often does, it’s supposed to frighten members into action.
That was the idea when Congress created the “fiscal cliff” in August, 2011 to resolve a partisan struggle, also with a deadline and also self-created, over raising the federal debt ceiling.
Catastrophic budget cuts, timed to coincide with the threat of hefty income tax increases, would finally produce big cuts in the soaring federal budget by December 31, 2012, or else.
It didn’t work.
Congress scared everyone but Congress, which while cutting taxes for most and raising them for a few, made no pretense of trying to make any progress toward reducing the deficit.
“We created a monster,” Democratic Representative Charles Rangel of New York said on the floor of the House of Representatives on Tuesday night just before a House vote averted most of the effects of the fiscal cliff.
“This fandango was an immense embarrassment,” American Enterprise Institute scholar Norm Ornstein said in an interview with Reuters, calling it “cringeworthy.”
And “the fact that we are going to have another disastrous confrontation over the debt limit in two months, with the radical right wing of the House Republicans determined to send us over the edge if they don’t get their way, is actually frightening.”
“This House could have done worse, by rejecting the plan” to avoid the cliff, he said, “but it has done nothing to challenge its record as at minimum the worst Congress in our lifetimes.”
The next confrontation to which Ornstein referred is likely to start heating up in a matter of weeks in anticipation of the need to once again raise the borrowing limit for the government beyond the current level of about $ 16 trillion. The risk will be a default by the government.
‘PSYCHOLOGICAL FALLOUT’
Republicans in Congress, many of whom acknowledged publicly that they took a beating from President Barack Obama in the contest over the cliff, are promising to pursue spending cuts with extra vigor as a condition for approving the debt ceiling increase in the Republican-controlled House.
Historically, each partisan grudge match over spending has tended to make the next one even more bitter.
Alice Rivlin, a former U.S. budget director and Brookings Institution budget expert, also worries about “psychological fallout” from the battle over the cliff that could spill over into the debt ceiling struggle as well as contribute to the global perception that when it comes to the economy, the U.S. can’t govern itself.
“It’s very bad for the economy,” she said in an interview with Reuters, “and for our image in the world. We don’t look like a country in charge of its own destiny. That’s hard to quantify but it’s bad.”
“This is a Congress that can barely get its work done – especially when confronting the most important issues of the day,” said Sarah Binder, a George Washington University expert on Congress.
“In many ways, public disgust with Congress is already baked in: the public’s expectations are so low that it’s hard for Congress to surprise us,” she said in an interview with Reuters.
That wasn’t the way Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – the chief architect of the cliff – expressed it on August 1, 2011 as he spoke on the Senate floor.
“It might have appeared to some as though their government wasn’t working,” he said, “but in fact the opposite was true. The push and pull Americans saw in Washington these past few weeks was not gridlock, it was the will of the people working itself out in a political system that was never meant to be pretty.”
Republican Representative David Dreier of California expressed a similar sentiment Monday night as the House closed the loop on the plan McConnell designed.
“This is the greatest deliberative body known to man,” he said.
(Editing by Eric Walsh)
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TAMOUN, West Bank (AP) — An arrest raid by undercover Israeli soldiers disguised as vegetable vendors ignited rare clashes in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, residents said, leaving at 10 Palestinians wounded.
Israeli army raids into Palestinian areas to seize activists and militants are fairly common. The raids are normally coordinated with Palestinian security forces, and suspects are usually apprehended without violence.
The clashes began early Tuesday after Israeli forces disguised as merchants in a vegetable truck arrested one man. Regular army forces then entered the town, prompting youths to hurl rocks to try to prevent more arrests.
Israeli forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition as youths set tires and bins on fire to block the passage of military vehicles. In several hours of clashes, dozens of masked youths hid behind makeshift barriers, hurling rocks and firebombs at soldiers.
Faris Bisharat, a resident of Tamoun, said 10 men were wounded, some by live fire. Bisharat said the wanted men belong to Islamic Jihad, a violent group sworn to Israel’s destruction. It wasn’t clear how many men Israeli forces sought to arrest. There were no immediate details on how seriously the 10 were hurt.
The Israeli military said it arrested a “terrorist affiliated with the Islamic Jihad terror group.” It said two soldiers were injured during the raid.
The fighting, which broke out in several parts of the town of some 8,000 people, were a rare, angry response. It was also unusual for Israeli forces to use live fire toward Palestinian demonstrators. Israel says it uses live fire only in extremely dangerous situations.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police say a paparazzo was hit by a car and killed after taking photos of Justin Bieber‘s white Ferrari on a Los Angeles street.
Los Angeles police Officer James Stoughton says the photographer, who was not identified, died at a hospital shortly after the crash Tuesday evening. Stoughton says Bieber was not in the Ferrari at the time.
The sports car was parked on the side of Sepulveda Boulevard near Getty Center Drive after a traffic stop. The photographer was struck as he walked across the boulevard after taking pictures.
Stoughton says no charges are expected to be filed against the motorist who hit the man.
A call to a spokesperson for the singer was not immediately returned Tuesday night.
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We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:
RELATED: ‘Roseanne’ Predicted Internet Addiction; A Weather Alert from Hell
Filmmaker Ryan James Yezak boiled down the biggest stories of 2012 into four minutes. And, yes, Honey Boo Boo made it in there:
RELATED: Even Batman Gets Tripped up by Apple Maps
RELATED: The Videos You Shouldn’t (and Probably Couldn’t) Try at Home
So, raise your hand if you knew Patrick Stewart and company were having this much fun behind the scenes at Star Trek: The Next Generation.
RELATED: Here’s a Video of George Takei Reading ’50 Shades of Grey’
RELATED: Cookie Monster Batman and the Dog You Wish You Had
Marvel’s Stan Lee — the guy who created characters like the Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, and the X-Men — turned 90 the other day. In honor of him and his heroes, here are all his cameos from all of the Marvel movies he helped create:
And, finally, it’s 2013 somewhere… right? Please take caution when announcing that news to this very excitable baby. Happy New Year!
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News
With 2013 just over two hours old, the Senate voted 89-8 on Tuesday to
approve a last-minute deal to avert income tax hikes on all but the
richest Americans and stall painful spending cuts as part of a
hard-fought compromise to avoid the economically toxic “fiscal cliff.”
The country had already technically tumbled over the cliff by the time the gavel came down on the vote at 2:07 a.m.. The House of Representatives was not due to return to work to take up the measure until midday on Tuesday. But with financial markets closed for New Year's Day, quick action by lawmakers would likely limit the economic damage.
The lopsided margin belied anxiety on both sides about the deal, which emerged from barely two days of talks between Vice President Joe Biden and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Among the “no” votes: Republican Senator Marco Rubio, widely thought to have his eye on the 2016 presidential race.
In remarks just before the vote, McConnell repeatedly called the agreement “imperfect” but said it beat allowing income tax rates rise across the board.
“I know I can speak for my entire conference when I say we don’t think taxes should be going up on anyone, but we all knew that if we did nothing they’d be going up on everyone today,” he said. “We weren’t going to let that happen.”
“Our most important priority was to protect middle-class families. This legislation does that,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said. But Reid cautioned that “passing this agreement does not mean negotiations halt. Far from it.”
Compromises on tax rates
Under the compromise arrangement, taxes would rise on income above $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for households, while exemptions and deductions the wealthiest Americans use to reduce their tax bill would face new limits. The accord would also raise the taxes paid on large inheritances from 35% to 40% for estates over $5 million. And it would extend by one year unemployment benefits for some two million Americans. It would also prevent cuts in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients and spare tens of millions of Americans who otherwise would have been hit with the Alternative Minimum Tax.The middle class will still see its taxes go up: The final deal did not include an extension of the payroll tax holiday. And the overall package will deepen the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars by extending the overwhelming majority of the Bush tax cuts. Many Democrats had opposed those measures in 2001 and 2003. Obama agreed to extend them in 2010.
Efforts to modify the first installment of $1.2 trillion in cuts to domestic and defense programs over 10 years -- the other portion of the “fiscal cliff,” known as sequestration -- had proved a sticking point late in the game. Democrats had sought a year-long freeze but ultimately caved to Republican pressure and signed on to just a two-month delay while broader deficit-reduction talks continue.
Debt-limit battle looms
That would put the next major battle over spending cuts right around the time that the White House and its Republican foes are battling it out over whether to raise the country's debt limit. Republicans have vowed to push for more spending cuts, equivalent to the amount of new borrowing. Obama has vowed not to negotiate as he did in 2011, when a bruising fight threatened the first-ever default on America's obligations and resulted in the first-ever downgrade of the country's credit rating. Biden sent that message to Democrats in Congress, two senators said.
Experts had warned that the fiscal cliff's tax increases and spending cuts, taken together, could plunge the still-fragile economy into a new recession.
Biden, evidently in good spirits after playing a central role in crafting the deal, said little on his way into or out of a roughly one hour and 45 minute meeting behind closed doors with Senate Democrats. "Happy New Year," he said on the way in. Asked on the way out what his chief selling point had been, the vice president reportedly replied: "Me."
Biden's intervention; hurdles in the House
Hours earlier, a Democratic Senate aide told Yahoo News that "the White House and Republicans have a deal," while a source familiar with the negotiations said President Barack Obama had discussed the compromise with Reid and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and "they both signed off."
But the House’s Republican leaders, including Speaker John Boehner, hinted in an unusual joint statement that they might amend anything that clears the Senate – a step that could kill the deal.
“Decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members -- and the American people -- have been able to review the legislation,” they said.Biden, a 36-year Senate veteran, worked out the agreement with McConnell after talks between Obama and Boehner collapsed and a similar effort between McConnell and Reid followed suit shortly thereafter. With the deal mostly done, Obama made a final push at the White House.
“Today, it appears that an agreement to prevent this New Year's tax hike is within sight, but it's not done,” Obama said in hastily announced midday remarks at the White House. “There are still issues left to resolve, but we're hopeful that Congress can get it done – but it’s not done.”
"One thing we can count on with respect to this Congress is that if there is even one second left before you have to do what you’re supposed to do, they will use that last second," he said.
Obama’s remarks – by turns scolding, triumphant, and mocking of Congress – came after talks between McConnell and Biden appeared to seal the breakthrough deal.
“I can report that we’ve reached an agreement on all of the tax issues,” McConnell said on the Senate floor moments later. “We are very, very close to an agreement.”
The Kentucky Republican later briefed Republicans on the details of the deal. Lawmakers emerged from that closed-door session offered hopeful appraisals that, after clearing a few last-minute hurdles, they could vote on New Year’s Eve or with 2013 just hours old.
“Tonight, I hope,” Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee told reporters. “It may be at 1, 2, 3, 4 in the morning. Oh, I guess that’s technically tomorrow.”
Reckoning with the 'sequester'
Republican Senators said negotiators were still working on a way to forestall two months of the “sequester” spending cuts, about $20 billion worth. And some expressed disquiet that the tentative compromise ran high on tax increases and low on spending cuts -- while warning that failure to act, triggering some $600 billion in income tax increases on all Americans who pay it and draconian spending cuts, was the worse option.
McConnell earlier had called for a vote on the tax component of the deal.
“Let me be clear: We’ll continue to work on finding smarter ways to cut spending, but let’s not let that hold up protecting Americans from the tax hike,” McConnell urged. “Let’s pass the tax relief portion now. Let’s take what’s been agreed to and get moving.”House passage was not a sure thing: Both the AFL-CIO labor union and the conservative Heritage Action organization argued against the package.
The breakthrough came after McConnell announced Sunday that he had started to negotiate with Biden in a bid to "jump-start" stalled talks to avoid the fiscal cliff.
Under their tentative deal, the top tax rate on household income above $450,000 would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent -- where it was under Bill Clinton, before the reductions enacted under George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003.
Some congressional liberals had expressed objections to extending tax cuts above the $250,000 income threshold Obama cited throughout the 2012 campaign. Democrats were huddling in private as well to work out whether they could support the arrangement.
Obama responds to critics
Possibly with balking progressives in mind, Obama trumpeted victories dear to the left of his party. "The potential agreement that’s being talked about would not only make sure the taxes don’t go up on middle-class families, it also would extend tax credits for families with children. It would extend our tuition tax credit that’s helped millions of families pay for college. It would extend tax credits for clean energy companies that are creating jobs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. It would extend unemployment insurance to 2 million Americans who are out there still actively looking for a job."
Obama said he had hoped for "a larger agreement, a bigger deal, a grand bargain," to stem the tide of red ink swamping the country’s finances – but shelved that goal.
"With this Congress, that was obviously a little too much to hope for at this time," he said. "It may be we can do it in stages. We’re going to solve this problem instead in several steps."
The president also looked ahead to his next budgetary battle with Republicans, warning that “any future deficit agreement” will have to couple spending cuts with tax increases. He expressed a willingness to reduce spending on popular programs like Medicare, but said entitlement reform would have to go hand in hand with new tax revenues.
“If Republicans think that I will finish the job of deficit reduction through spending cuts alone … then they’ve another thing coming,” Obama said defiantly. “That’s not how it’s going to work.”
“If we’re serious about deficit reduction and debt reduction, then it’s going to have to be a matter of shared sacrifice. At least as long as I’m president. And I’m going to be president for the next four years, I hope,” he said.
The other “no” votes were: Michael Bennet (D-Col.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ken.), and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). Republicans Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Mark Kirk of Illinois as well as Democrat Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey did not vote.WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama called on Tuesday for the House of Representatives to follow the Senate‘s lead and pass a “fiscal cliff” deal to extend tax cuts for middle-class Americans and raise tax rates on top earners.
“While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay,” Obama said in a statement after the Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve the legislation.
“There’s more work to do to reduce our deficits, and I’m willing to do it. But tonight’s agreement ensures that, going forward, we will continue to reduce the deficit through a combination of new spending cuts and new revenues from the wealthiest Americans,” Obama said.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Eric Walsh)
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Jan 1 (Infostrada Sports) – Results from the Auckland Classic Women’s Singles Round 1 matches on Tuesday
2-Julia Goerges (Germany) beat Anastasija Sevastova (Latvia) 6-3 6-4
Marina Erakovic (New Zealand) beat Stephanie Dubois (Canada) 6-2 6-1
1-Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland) beat Greta Arn (Hungary) 6-2 6-2
8-Mona Barthel (Germany) beat Grace Min (U.S.) 6-1 6-3
6-Yaroslava Shvedova (Kazakhstan) beat Lara Arruabarrena Vecino (Spain) 6-3 6-2
Romina Oprandi (Switzerland) beat Nudnida Luangnam (Thailand) 6-0 6-2
Heather Watson (Britain) beat 5-Sorana Cirstea (Romania) 6-3 (Cirstea retired)
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NEW YORK (AP) — The Metropolitan Opera may have pretty much turned opening night over to the glamorous Anna Netrebko, but New Year’s Eve belongs to a very different diva — Joyce DiDonato.
Last year the Kansas-born mezzo-soprano headlined a starry lineup in the baroque pastiche “The Enchanted Island.” On Monday night she brought a gala audience to its feet with a luminous performance in the title role of Donizetti’s “Maria Stuarda.”
Never before performed at the Met, this second opera in the composer’s so-called “Three Queens” trilogy portrays the lethal conflict between Mary, deposed queen of Scotland, and Queen Elizabeth I of England.
From the moment she makes her entrance in the second scene, singing of her joy in strolling outside her prison in Fotheringay Castle, DiDonato rivets attention. She imbues every syllable with a concentrated eloquence that makes her compact voice seem larger than it is. She displays seemingly effortless command of coloratura embellishments throughout a wide vocal range. And she is equally impressive in fiery outbursts and in hushed, long-held phrases — like the ones she spun out as she sang through the chorus in the final scene.
The opera’s dramatic heart is a confrontation between the two queens that never took place in history but that figures in the Friedrich Schiller play on which the libretto is based. Mary at first abases herself in hope of winning a pardon; then, as Elizabeth hurls insults, her pride reasserts itself and she seals her doom by denouncing her rival as “figlia impura di Bolena” (“impure daughter of Anne Boleyn”) and “vil bastarda” (“vile bastard”).
DiDonato was impressive in this scene when she sang the role for the first time last spring in Houston, but her performance Monday night was even better — more confident and more filled with vocal and dramatic shadings. There was a wonderful touch when, after she had spent her fury, she allowed herself a beatific smile, as if to convey: “There! I said it and I’m glad!”
Of course, it takes two to stage a confrontation, and DiDonato’s partner at the Met is Elza van den Heever, a South African soprano making her debut. She has a voice that’s impressive in many respects, with a large and vibrant upper register. But she tended to fade out in the lower part of her range, where much of Elizabeth‘s music lies.
More damagingly, she was victimized by a quirk of David McVicar’s production that has Elizabeth lurching awkwardly about the stage for much of the evening, as if thrown off balance by John Macfarlane‘s elaborate period costumes. Perhaps this bizarre gait is intended to contrast with Mary’s immaculate poise, but it mainly proves distracting.
The opening scene in Elizabeth’s palace is garishly staged, with what look like red rafters hanging down from the ceiling and gratuitous acrobats in devil costumes, but once past this, matters improve. For the scene outside Fotheringay, Macfarlane fills the stage with spindly trees barren of leaves and provides a painted backdrop that evokes a cloudy landscape. The final tableau is also striking: Mary, shorn of her long hair and wearing a simple red dress, climbs a staircase with her back to the audience to meet her executioner and the chopping block.
Though the two queens dominate the opera, there are some other characters, and they are all in extremely good hands. Having the elegant tenor Matthew Polenzani take on the thankless role of the ineffectual Leicester is luxury casting indeed. Bass Matthew Rose is warmly sympathetic as Mary’s confessor, Talbot; baritone Joshua Hopkins sings with robust tone as her nemesis, Cecil; and mezzo Maria Zifchak lends her customary strong support as Mary’s attendant, Anna.
Maurizio Benini conducts a lithe and lively performance of the score, even if he can’t quite disguise the fact that the second half of the opera is decidedly anti-climactic.
There are seven more performances, including a matinee on Saturday, Jan. 19, that will be broadcast live in HD to movie theaters around the world.
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