This season the Met has seen fit to offer three works composed in the past hundred years: Satyagraha, The Makropulos Case, and Billy Budd. The last two, receiving eight performances in total, are coming in under the wire in these closing weeks of the season. Makropulos opened last night, and it's a gripping show, some rough work on the part of a perhaps exhausted orchestra aside. The Elijah Moshinsky production won't please avant-gardists, but it makes for a sturdy and handsome setting. Karita Mattila is hypnotic as the 337-year-old diva, though she vamps it up too much at times; I cherish memories of the icily potent Anja Silja at BAM in 2001. Go see it if you can — and don't miss Billy Budd, which opens next Friday. In the 2012-13 season, as I noted earlier, the Met will feature precisely two operas written after the death of Puccini.
