Korean jumps in at Met as Nadine falls sick
NewsThe Korean soprano Park So-young sang a title role at two hours’ notice at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on Saturday night. She performed Juliette opposite French tenor Benjamin Bernheim (pictured together) in Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette after Nadine Sierra fell sick.
Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducted.
So-young, 37, had been Sierra’s cover for the entire run.
It was a matinee, not an evening performance.
What is the point of giving a “thumbs down” to a factual comment?
She was barely acceptable. Sad commentary on the state of the art today, and on the Met’s management. How could they have ever believed she could handle this role? Tenor was splendid.
the MET under overrated mediocre Peter Gelb has become a disaster for years – he killed the House
After Jonathan Friend and Sarah Billinghurst left, nobody at the Met anymore cares about the quality of the singers, and of the conductors. Yannick, who is a gifted conductor, doesn’t care either, being very egomaniac about everything. Most of the other conductors there are second or even third rate. Ten years ago we had Luisi, Salonen, Robertson, Muti, Benini, Armiliato…. different levels, yes, but all committed, experienced and loved by the orchestra. Now………
Jonathan friend is still very much running the casting dept at the met. The long decline of the vocal arts at the met is very much his doing
Yannick is an overrrated gimmicky circus midget in culottes with side boob.. he follows the orchestra never leads and Is a travesty… there is no gift just pretentious cloying bilullshit….
I’m sorry to say I agree with you. I was rooting hard for her! But she wasn’t up to the part that day.
Agree. I was there in person and so disappointed.
Also very sad about this as I took a group of students who were experiencing their first opera! I so wished them to hear Nadine Sierra.
Why is this soprano’s race the lead? How about, “Park So-young jumps in at Met…?”
More interesting: how did she do? How did Bernheim feel and how was their chemistry?
Yes my reaction also feels rather crude .. state of media journalism today –
Some youngster probably doesn’t have a handle on professional journalism etiquette.
Even professionals don’t anymore come to think of it — mediocrity and lower is the standard of today — that’s a headline grabber tactic!
EXACTLY. When one is talking performance quality, the lead words is not the nationality. That is the last thing to be mentioned.
Where was she TRAINED? So many IMPORTANT things, you never told us. One’s race or colour are NOT important. Their musicality, interpretation & quality are what count.
Thank you for bringing up this topic. It’s the first thing I realized as I scrolled through the website. My husband trained as a journalist, he will often catch these sorts of things, and bring them to my attention. This headline really does show the perhaps unrealized mindset of the editorial staff. They need to look deep inside and find some detachment from their racist underpinnings, as we all have had to do, especially since 2015.
This is written in a combination of puzzlement and friendly good humour.
I can never understand why this website so often feels compelled to mention the ethnicity of a performer when it has no actual relevance to the subject at hand. In this case: “Korean [who goes unnamed in the caption] Jumps In At Met As Nadine Falls Sick.”
There have been many Korean singers at the Met, so it’s not as if earthshaking news has just been made because some previous exclusion has finally been corrected.
And both of these women have actual names, and “Korean” is not one of those two names, so why not just “Park So-Young, Cover for Met’s Juliette, Jumps In As Nadine Sierra Falls Sick.” ?
Or, if ethnicity is somehow always relevant, the awkward but nevertheless evenhanded “Korean Jumps in at Met As Soprano of Portuguese/Puerto Rican/Italian Ancestry Falls Sick.”
The practice of emphasizing ethnicity is an unfortunate reflection of how the public engages with artistic culture.
Entertainment and political cultures as well…Why aren’t we beyond this?
37 is not So-young for an opera cover. She should try Broadway or operetta.
How nice that you felt it necessary to add ageism to xenophobia in this conversation. Troubling minds…
I hope N Sierra recovers for Lucia at ROH in a few weeks she was the main reason for booking
You and the moderator who allowed that comment should both be ashamed.
Ethnicity is good. We like to know who we are listening too and looking at..
The Met thinks that they always have the best singers, in many instances this is true, but they neglect the Americans that are excellent and are now singing in Europe. Pay attention to those oce in a while.
I’ve mentioned it here before – but why should we care about the ethnicity of a performer? Does it add anything to our understanding or appreciation of who they are or what they can do?
She sang the Saturday 3/30 matinee and last performance of Romeo et Juliette, not evening. The evening performance was La Rondine.
Thank god we heard Nadine Sierra three days earlier. We sent two friends to Saturday’s performance and they were so sorry to miss her. As with her Juliette in Bilbao – where I heard her sing the poison aria twice after an endless ovation – she was absolutely out of this world. Whatever role she touches these days, she immediately become the best in; Juliette, Violetta, Lucia, Gilda… And this time, she had a tenor to match in the exquisitely elegant Benjamin Bernheim. It felt like the Met of old, leading the world with top class singing. Now they just need to get Ludovic Tézier there singing the great baritone roles, while he is in his prime. He should be singing Rigoletto to Sierra’s Gilda next season. But he never sings there. I would love to know why, since he is by far the best living Verdian baritone.
My wife and I were at the same earlier performance you mention, and are in total accord with your assessment of Ms Sierra and Mr Bernheim — what a delight!
I was there and agree
I agree about Ludovic . He’s superb . Scarpia in ROH this July
Couldn’t they find someone of comparable caliber, like Oropesa? People paid big money to see the show for crying out loud. If it were me I would ask for my $17 back.
I was at the March 30th matinee.It was a beautiful and inspiring performance. Park So-young and Benjamin Bernhein created magic together and Yannet Nezit-Seguin created passion with the music.
I presume this lady who replaced N Sierra was the understudy I actually wonder sometimes if they are given a performance at short notice to test them I maybe wrong and its disappointing for those booked for another singer it usually tends to be near the end of a run or even last performance I’m probably totally wrong I’ve experienced this sort of thing though before