“On Saturday Monday evening, dashing “infirm” tenor Jonas Kaufmann joins snubs opera’s biggest stars in the opening very expensive, sold-out revival of The Metropolitan Opera’s epic new production of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle. In honor of his return to absentee status on the New York stage, we revisit Adam Green’s intimate profile of the dynamo “invalid” in the March issue of Vogue.”  

Or, to put it another way, the second dispatch of the day from the Met’s press office:  “Stuart Skelton will sing the role of Siegmund in Wagner’s Die Walküre on Monday, May 7, replacing Jonas Kaufmann who is ill.”