In a Met season smothered in bel canto operas—five by Donizetti, two by Rossini—one may ponder the signs of overload. The unfamiliar work is not selling well. La Donna del Lago might play better in these parts if it were titled “The Lady of the Lake.” No one reads Sir Walter Scott’s poem anymore, but it would sound more haimish that way, or the unwary might confuse it with the legend of King Arthur or a Raymond Chandler mystery. Anything to get them inside to hear a pleasant, not terribly exciting Rossini seria score of 1819, most noteworthy because it has been called the first opera ever based on Scott, and Scott’s works inspired dozens of operas in the decades of the Romantic Era then a-dawning. At the Teatro San Carlo, of course, part of the appeal was romantic and unfamiliar Highland scenery. Tree-clad mountains! Torrential burns rushing through the glens! Ellen Douglas (Elena) entering in a row boat across Loch Katrine! But you don’t get that at the Met, where set designer Kevin Knight seems afraid to be scenic. What you get is distant shadows and rolling clouds and some sunset, perhaps to make you think of Santa Fe, where Paul Curran’s production originated. Although there are burning crosses in the Gathering of the Clans scene for a frisson (this detail actually comes from Walter Scott; that’s where the KKK got the idea, too) and blue woad is slopped on naked bodies (an anachronism ripped from Braveheart), the only scenic coup de théâtre was the glittering court room of the final scene, as if the producers knew “Tanti affetti” was the best number in the show and the chance to send audiences home happy. Joyce DiDonato sang “Tanti affetti” with the assurance, the grace, the ecstatic belief in each word she uttered that are her trademarks. She also acted the entire show as if her fears and hopes were genuine. She is a lovely, winning personality, born to hold a stage. Her voice, however, is not the blazing instrument with which a Caballé or a Simionato could move such an opera, like a tidal wave to a triumphant shore. Hers is a most attractive instrument, well-schooled and ready to serve her dramatic purpose; she expresses joy with infectious charm, foreboding with elegant shading. Her ornaments are refined and pretty. She is not a high soprano, but neither was Colbran, the part’s originator, or von Stade, who sang it last in New York: She is never under strain to get every note evenly produced. It is good to be in the presence of her singing and her charm—but without her, we’d never have heard this opera at the Met.  Elena is courted by two tenors and therefore, as usual in Rossini’s serious operas of this period, she falls in love with the trouser mezzo. Either he gets her and a happy ending (Donna del Lago, Adelaide di Borgogna, Le Comte Ory) or he doesn’t and it’s not (Maometto II, Semiramide). The two tenors last year were Juan Diego Flórez (Uberto/Giacomo V) and John Osborn (Rodrigo), whose voices made a fascinating contrast, the one high and nasal, the other low, with a baritonal sexiness. This year, they are Lawrence Brownlee (who sang it in Santa Fe) and Osborn, once again a contrast in qualities that makes it easier to follow them in ensembles. Brownlee has a sweeter tenor than Flórez, though one has heard him sound creamier (in La Cenerentola and I Puritani, for example) than he does here. His lower phrases were growly at the prima. I do not find the voice so sweet as, say, Camarena’s. Brownlee’s acting is less stiff than it used to be, yet his is not a stagy personality. He’s working on it, and he improves. (At the Met, however, the crowd adores him.) Osborn seems, as so often (William Tell at Carnegie Hall last year, for example), underweighted for his choice of roles, skimping on high notes. Perhaps the theater is too large for him. His voice itself is so agreeable, so invigoratingly masculine, and his coloratura so able that I would like him to find his proper repertory.