Thursday, March 20, 2008

Tristan und Isolde will be interesting

The Metropolitan Opera is broadcasting Tristan und Isolde to movie theaters around the world on Saturday. If Saturday's performance is like the earlier ones in the run, we will be in for surprises.

Ben Heppner, the Tristan we were looking forward to hearing, has not yet been able to perform. He's had a viral infection. They got replacement tenors for Tristan.

During the second act of the second performance in the run, Deborah Voigt, the Isolde we're looking forward to hearing, had tummy troubles and had to bail out. Her cover took over and finished the performance. This was with a second replacement Tristan.

Then in the next performance the second replacement Tristan slid down the raked stage into the prompter's box. He wasn't hurt and finished the performance (after a bit of a pause).

Saturday we get to hear a third replacement Tristan. And with any luck Deborah Voigt.

Read all about it (and much more) in this New York Times article.

What else can go wrong?

(Ben Heppner is scheduled to sing in the last two performances.)

2 comments:

Poss said...

Sounds like Curse of the Krauts to me.

P-Doobie said...

We saw Deborah Voigt in concert in Santa Fe and enjoyed her singing very much.

We will also go to the Met's live simulcast tomorrow. I hope all the principals are well enough to go on. We're taking Power Bars and juice boxes.