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.
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.