paging albert da costa?
La Cieca hears that the Met is skedding tenor (erstwhile baritone) Gary Lehman for a Tristan staging rehearsal tomorrow. As La Cieca understands it, Lehman is a formal cover for the role (after John Mac Master) and so . . . well, just about anything may happen on Friday night. And thereafter, actually.
I saw Lehman’s first Parsifal (in LA) as a last-minute replacement for Placido. And, you know, he did pretty well.
Who is Voigt’s cover for Isolde??
Lehman? .. Zo has unsere teuere Lotte returned to us? (Though slightly misspelt)
I am seeing & hearing the Tristan on Friday night. Gosh, I hope some one is going to sing Tristan. It would be nice. Bel Canto Tenors are at a premium, but Heldentenors seem to be non existant.
The production leaves me cold. Saw it a couple years ago with Eaglen…OY Let us hope that whoever they put in can cut the mustard……
I forgot to say that I am doing a novena that Ben Heppner will be well, but I kinda got my doubts
What’s Peter Seiffert up to this week?
Covers are:
Voigt/Janice Baird
de Young/Margaret Jane Wray
Heppner/Gary Lehman (John MacMaster?)
Schulte/Richard Paul Fink
Salminen/Gregory Reinhardt
Geartner/Luis Otey
etc.
WHO???????????, why don’t we just cancel Tristan altogether and do something that someone can sing. Why not substitute SALOME with Voigt, the tenor is not as important there. five hours of tedium here we come, I have a ticket for the 25th, this could be a long evening
Really, just do another opera.
I went to a Forza once when the cancellations caused the MET to perform Tosca instead.
Remember the night in the early – 1970s I think it was – when they had scheduled ELEKTRA with Irene Dalis finally getting to do Klytamnestra and then all their Elektras were indisposed and they couldn’t find anyone so they put on FIDELIO with Christa Ludwig instead?
Chester yelled:
Really, just do another opera.
I went to a Forza once when the cancellations caused the MET to perform Tosca instead.
“I heard that too and a great TOSCA it was- Criz-Romo, Domingo, Wizell and Levine. Great stuff.”
but i’m a tristan virgin! i’ve been saving myself, when as a naive college freshman decided to save hearing a note of tristan (except “the chord” for music history) to hear debbie voigt do it. now she went and got skinny and the heldentenors seem to be dropping like flies…i have a ticket for friday.
i think i’m screwed
Of course Tristan has its own challenges, to say the least, but I agree with Baritenor. Lehman’s last-minute Parsifal in LA was quite good.
Chester and Nerva –
How many of us were at the Forza/Tosca night (3/1/77)? I was a student in Hartford and a whole crew piled into my old station wagon and drove down to see “our” diva, Leontyne. The Price/Domingo/Milnes recording had just come out a short time before that and we were stoked. Then crushed. And to think we were screwed by a fellow alumnus, Cornell MacNeil. However, Domingo did seem to try to give even more that night than usual.
I’ve never fogiven MacNeil for that one or the other time he screwed with us. The following year he quit after act one of an Otello performance. The first intermission went on and on and on. Finally they announced that MacNeil couldn’t go on and that they had found someone to take his place but would be a while before he could get there (the cover had left). Half an hour later they came on and announced they were ready to start and the replacement was Milnes. The audience went nuts. Act 2 started, he came in too early on Non ti crucciar, corrected himself and came in again when he should have — the house errupted.
I think I’d feel about the same way substituting another opera for T&I. I’m out in the boonies and have been looking forward to the HD broadcast on 3/22 all year. I don’t think they could do anything else on that day without causing a complete uproar. Screwing 4000 people in the house is one thing. Screwing a whole lot more around the world would be another. Either Heppner is well by then or they have to go and get the best available Tristan for the broadcast at whatever the cost. May the daCosta idea would not be so bad either. Just don’t make poor Mac Masters have to do it all again. I fear it could kill him.
“How many of us were at the Forza/Tosca night (3/1/77)? I was a student in Hartford and a whole crew piled into my old station wagon and drove down to see “our†diva, Leontyne. The Price/Domingo/Milnes recording had just come out a short time before that and we were stoked. Then crushed. And to think we were screwed by a fellow alumnus, Cornell MacNeil. However, Domingo did seem to try to give even more that night than usual.”
I was in high school. The usher told my father that Price had been offered the chance to sing Tosca; she hadn’t done so with the company since 1962 and demurred.
Nerva — I can confirm that Price declined. The following summer Levine had a small Q&A session at Wolf Trap while the Met was performing there and I asked him about that night and he said Price declined. It also sounded like a nightmare getting Tosca ready for that night. Getting the kids chorus together was tough by itself. He said they were calling schools and getting the kids out. I don’t think my principal would have bought that.
That was only Cruz-Romo’s second-ever Tosca at teh Met- teh first had been a one nighter w/King. Bacquier and Levine in December 1971. I have seen better acted Toscas, but I am not sure I have ever heard a better sung one live.
And I remember Wixell and Capecchi as being excellent too.
I was a standee and VERY disappointed not to hear Forza. But I do remember that the Tosca was very good. Cruz R, I always enjoyed live and Domingo did put some effort into it.
It always seemed unfair to me that the German repertoire was left out of the tenor roulette last fall. Now it’s pay-back time.
I recorded Brangaene opposite dear Birgit for Sir Georg and of course I could sing Melot *tomorrow*- it’s a question of color and tessitura.
Cruz-Romo sang Tosca with the Met on tour. I saw her at Wolf Trab probably in 1979. She was quite good.
I agree with those who support cancelling Tristan when a tenor worth of appearing at the Met in the role isn’t available. Just matter of respect for the patrons. Having said that, I’ll be at the Met next Tuesday for T&I… who will my Tristan be? Jon Vickers is still alive…
I hear they have called Phillip Creech to cover the part!!!!!
PHILLIP CREECH?!!!
Levine’s personal request
Phillip Creech? Surely not. Perhaps Famous Quickly could cover…
To “cover” Levine or the role of Tristan????
Wasn’t Mr. Creech Levine’s BF at some point. Is he still? Is his nickname still Phillip Screech? Is Tristan about the only role that Domingo hasn’t already added to his rep?
I was at that Cruz Romo Tosca but knew Leontyne wouldn’t sing — she had luck with only one Puccini part, Butterfly, where she was overwhelming three times, despite her oddish stage manner (I can only compare it to dear Eleanor in Philly who couldn’t do the stage business either but sang gloriously, if without quite the impact of Leontyne, and Big Renata, polio and all, really did the business, but nobody did it like Stella who poured out golden tone even compared to Big Renata, and then there was Vicki who did it her way but was so heartbreaking and innocent she gave me a sex change right there).
Lee’s Manon Lescaut was a disaster of historical proportions (she went on for Kubiak, big mistake) and when she tried to act elegant in act two the audience at the first night roared with laughter, so did she!!!!!!!!! It’s true that on nights 2 and 3 she did a very good act four, but that was too late).
I LOVED Gilda, I don’t care what anybody says. She didn’t attain a high level of consistency but there’s not a spinto or even a big lyric in the world like her and when not crazy with fear she could be stunning — a Lady Macbeth with the also marvelous Carolli (in Hartford or NJ? I age I forget) was fantastic; she’s wasn’t quite Little Renata in Suor Angelica or my adored Kabaivanska (who tongue kissed me when I went backstage after the evening in Rome — but I had known her since I was 16 or so), or the very fine Soviero. She was however a terrific Aida (often with Ruben Ticker, standees would complain but to have that today!!!), and in fact she did the big Verdi roles very well.
Gilda gave up early, she got in her hubby’s 12 wheeler and took off for spaces unknown. A pity.
See, what I don’t understand here is: didn’t Cruz Romo know Forza at that time? I’m sure she sang it later on. And even if she didn’t know it, didn’t the Met have a cover? Was that during the period of Lucine’s absence?
It wasn’t Leontyne who backed out of that performance — it was Cornell MacNeil (the schmuck). From what Levine said at that Q&A session, they didn’t have a baritone to get on short notice who knew the tavern scene. And he wasn’t willing to cut the scene, hence the change to Tosca.