As Brunnhilde, the soprano Jane Eaglen certainly sounded fresh, singing with her customary vocal plushness and presence.
There was no fresh singing, just painful (and painfully drawn out) one-on-ones in which the judges — Simon Cowell, Nicole Scherzinger, L.A. Reid and Paula Abdul — each met with their eight singers and sent four of them home.
Still, this was some of his freshest singing in years.
Aoife Miskelly's clearly pregnant Zerlina is sung with impeccable definition, well matched by Christopher Cull's volatile if easily floored Masetto, while Clive Bayley – fresh from singing Leporello in ENO's production of the same opera – shows himself equally capable of a vocally awesome Commendatore.
The mayor was trailed, pied-piper-like, by Staten Island's latest celebrities: members of the Public School 22 chorus, fresh from singing at the Academy Awards.
Ms. Rivera was recently the star of the company's "Étoile," and she is again delightful as the stage boy, all flailing limbs and fresh, ready singing.
"I am more interested in creating fresh, spontaneous, singing melodic lines than in the factory-made tonal patterns of industrial civilization or the splotches and spots of sound hurled at random on a canvas of imaginary silence".
She could not have known when she agreed to choreograph a revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, which started previews last week at the Gershwin Theater, how meaningful it would be for audiences to see clog-stepping cowboys and fresh faces singing: "We know we belong to the land.
Mr. Pape, fresh from singing a gripping Banquo in Verdi's "Macbeth" at the Metropolitan Opera, will also lend his powerful basso cantante to Mussorgsky's mournful "Songs and Dances of Death," to be performed on Sunday in the Carnegie Hall premiere of Edison Denisov's version.
Carr later reprises the song in a duet with Maria Julie Andrewss), the fresh-faced singing governess.
The baritone Christopher Maltman, though not in his freshest voice, sings with care and passion.
