Just in: Kaufmann and Westbroek abandon Paris Ring
mainThe Bastille Ring, which is due to roll this week but may never happen due to Covid, has received withdrawal notices from two box-office stars.
Jonas Kaufmann (Siegmund) says he’s cutting back in travel during the pandemic and Eva-Maria Westbroek (Sieglinde) is nursing a husband who is sick with the virus.
Stuart Skelton and Lise Davidsen have been inked in as replacements.
Well, those are not bad replacements actually.
The replacements are better!
Lucky for us, the replacements are actually better then the initial cast!! Huray!!
You can see in the picture how happy they are about their decision.
Joking? The picture stems, of course, from non-COVID days!
My fly on the wall tells me that the picture was taken just after they left the telephone box where they cancelled their involvement, and were planning to get a drink together to celebrate.
Not when she’s nursing a sick husband with the virus that is rising. Perhaps a very old photo.
That’s good, Kaufmann should stick to his Christmas records. He could not top these with anything else anyway.
The cycle has officially been cancelled
Good for Stuart! I conducted a Dutchman with him and he was just super. He is getting his day now.
Skelton stood in for Kaufman at Baden Baden a couple of years ago he was magnificent.
Replacement was Schager.
Schager sang the second performance, Skelton the first … and he was really great.
Paris is in for a treat – hope the performances can be streamed online.
This is academic anyway, as I simply don’t see it happening given the pandemic.
From what I hear it is being filmed with no audience.
Sort of related, but just to say the two most mind-blowing live vocal performances I’ve seen in the last decade – by a mile – are Kaufmann’s Siegmund at the Met and Davidsen’s Elisabeth in Bayreuth. The kind of moments in opera you dream of hearing. In fact, add Michael Volle’s Hans Sachs (Bayreuth) and Ludovic Tézier’s MacBeth (Liceu) to that. Oh… and Brindley Sherratt’s Claggart (Teatro Real, Madrid)… Ok, I’ll shut up now.
This just in: A newly-discovered opera by John Cage. Recorded on hundreds of pages of plain white (not staff) paper, the work requires no audience, no orchestra, no singers, and – most happily of all – no director. The length? 4 hrs., 33 mins., of course. It’s expected to be a big hit during pandemic Christmas, especially when paired with YouTube videos of fake fire in a fake fireplace.
Many music lovers have been waiting for this production, which reveals the real meaning of much new operas since WW II.
Wow! Sad but true, I hope the box office is ready for the refund demand.
Eva-Maria Westbroek’s husband Frank van Aken is also an operasinger. He is a tenor.
Ksufmann abandons Paris? That is not nes,is habit
Unfortunately, it is true. It is not news when Kaufmann cancels . I was in Paris at his no-Tosca