tales told
This just in from the Met’s press office: “In the Met’s new staging of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Joseph Calleja will sing the title role, replacing Rolando Villazón, and Alan Held will sing the roles of the four villains, replacing René Pape.”
The press release goes on to explain that
Villazón plans to undergo throat surgery and will return to the stage in 2010. Pape has decided not to add the four villains (Lindorf, Coppélius, Dappertutto, and Dr. Miracle) to his repertory.
Here he is in Boheme with Kiri, c.1990 I would think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP2vMzqkKLA
Colin Lee is a first rate singer and 10 times the actor of the Divo, Mr Florez. Lee has received tons of well earned praise for both his singing and acting, over the last few years. And btw Lee sings two performances at the Garden as Almaviva in July.
As for Calleja, anyone who has seen and heard him in the last year, will know that his is well equipped both vocally and as an actor to take on the role of Hoffman.
Mr Villzon ……… well, I wish him well but doubt he will come back anywhere near the singer he was, sadly. He has now cancelled everything until May/June 2010.
Tenorfach, I see that cancellation until Spring of next year as some of the only good news to come from Villazon’s camp for a while. Two or three months of recuperation from his surgery is not enough, he will need close to a year to recover and retrain the voice. Whether he will retrain the voice so that crises like this don’t recur is another question.
Gaultier, yes and no it is good news. Depends on how the time is spend, but look at the evidence of the past -- will he be able to change enough in his personaly to make the changes long term, to continue to have a singing career?? Sorry, but I doubt it.
mrmyster- it’s a little schizophrenic to say in one post that ‘the British settle for second rate singers’, and in the next that you have ‘much respect’ for the great singers of Wales. Do I need to get my map of Britain out AGAIN?
And- the Vicar’s trolling, you know that, right? By the way, Vic, I have never heard the phrase ‘Commonwealth Artist’ anywhere but on this site, so it may not be as universal as you tediously affect to think.