Met replaces three in tonight’s Aida
OperaThere has been a rush to repair the shocking open ing night.
Piotr Beczala is out as Radames, subbed by the hastily flown-in Korean Seok Jong Baek (pic).
Dmitry Belosselskiy as Ramfis is replaced by the opening night’s King. Morris Robinson. He in turn is subbed by Harold Wilson.
New York’s opera influencers are still reeling from the first-night vocal disaster. How was that allowed to go on stage? they want to know.
I am reminded of a disastrous performance of a five act version of Don Carlo that I attended at the Metropolitan in April of 2015. Younghoon Lee who was scheduled to sing Carlo got sick and was replaced by a Brazilian tenor Ricardo Tamura. Mr.Tamura was also sick and lost his voice in the prologue. What followed was a five hour agony. “The announcement” was not made until the second intermission. Every scene with tenor in it was ruined. The rest of the excellent cast did their best to cover him in the ensembles. Barbara Frittoli, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Dmitry Hvorostovsky, James Morris, Ekaterina Gubanova, were all very good. Fun fact: Piotr Beczala was taking part in the Opera Quiz, and I jokingly suggested to my friend that he should take over the tenor part and put Mr.Tamura out of his misery. I honestly thought that he would never sing again. He got the applause for bravery, but ,I am sure, both him and the rest of the audience have never forgotten this horror show. Hopefully, the cast change will result in some improvement, but the production really sounds DOA.
You should hae heard, or rather not heard Brian Jagde in Forza in London last year – again no cover. Gone are the days when Carreras was sick and I got Pavarotti instead…
Who was the designated radames cover for this run?
With Gelb would they even have a cover
Every solo role at the Met has a cover. There is no guarantee that a cover will go on, however. And in leading roles in Gelb’s regime, it seems less likely than so that the cover will not go on.
The cover is the Venezuelan tenor Jorge Puerta, who has sung the role in Dresden, with the Lithuanian National Opera and at the Steinbruch St. Margarethen (which can be seen on Youtube.)
I’m not reeling but I am still angry I was rooked out of $900 for two tickets to what was inflicted on us all on New Years Eve. With really great singers this production would be tolerable (not as good as the prior production but tolerable). What we heard on December 31 was intolerable. An affront.
Same. We were also in attendance (but paid much less). It was a shockingly poor performance. Beczala should never have sung.
“Really great singers” of 2025. Such as…?
Alright, “really good singers” or even “singers in good health.”
If you pay $900 for two tickets to see anything, more fool you. Gelb saw you and others like you coming.
I paid 700 quid to watch Manchester United at Old Trafford. It wasn’t worth it either.
$900 for 2 tickets? WOW! I remember paying $130 years ago for box seats for Pavarotti’s first Tosca at the MET, and I thought that was highway robbery! WHo can afford to go? Terrible I am so sorry!
Did you try to get tickets for Taylor Swift? Of course she actually delivered the goods.
These were Grand Tier tickets which included a (not optional) tax-deductible donation of $90 each. New Year’s Eve. Got dressed up but this year as did most but it was unfortunate that the people-watching (always outstanding at the Met on NYE) was much better than the singing.
Opera companies should perhaps think about not scheduling difficult operas to sing in the winter with so many colds and flu going around. I’ve been to many operas in the winter when singers are replaced because of illness I know you can get sick anytime, but cold weather brings it on. There was a lot of sneezing and coughing in the audience at the opening of Aida.
Singers–and audiences too–take your vitamin D in the winter!
Define “difficult”??
There was a time in the 1960s and 70s before long distance air travel (even trans-Atlantic) became the norm when the Met had permanent in house covers. They may not have been ‘star’ names but they were in most cases fine voices that would often take on roles both in the main House and on the annual tours, thus ensuring performances would actually take place. One was the mezzo Joann Grillo who appeared more than 300 times and whose Carmen had been singled out for praise.
This was a period when superb American singers like Tatiana Troyanos, Barbara Bonney and Jessye Norman had to move to Europe to start their careers in opera. Ms. Norman made her debut with the Deutsche Oper in Berlin in 1969 and sang at various Houses including La Scala and London’s Royal Opera. Although she had appeared in concert and recitals in the USA and with the Philadelphia Opera, she did not make her Met debut until 1983.
But she did make her U.S. debut (singing “Aida” in concertante) in 1972 with James Levine at the Hollywood Bowl. Her belated Met debut was strategically planned, not at all because she wasn’t known.
There still are covers rehearsed and ready for everything there — just not always someone you want to put on at a NYE prima at those prices and in front of those critics (professional and amateur) in the room and on the radio. It’s always a judgment call I’m thrilled not to have to make.
You may well be correct in saying that Jessye Norman’s Met debut was “strategically planned” 14 years after she had started taking major roles in top Houses in Europe. My question then is “why”? One of the great voices of the second half of the century and the Met’s management waits 14 years? Yes, I know she sang recitals and concerts in the US. I know she sang with the Philadelphia Opera. And I know she was selective in what she sang.
For whatever reason, though, it does not dimish the fact that there were some very fine US singers active in Europe long before the Met called. Klara Barlow was another. She was on contract in several Houses including Munich in the 1960s before she made her Met debut in Fidelio in 1971. Her Isolde with Jon Vickers in 1974 was singled out for praise by critics whereafter she went on to sing a few other roles in the House. But her opera career continued mostly in Europe. I happened to hear her Isolde soon after hearing Karajan’s choice for the role, Helga Dernesch. Barlow was several notches better!
I share your admiration for Joann Grillo. She was also a fine Charlotte in WERTHER.
Charlotte? Where, because there is no record of her appearing in the role at the Met. I was there for the premiere of the new production in February 1971, when Corelli cancelled at 19:55 and Enrico Di Giuseppe went on. Charlottes came and went that first season: Christa Ludwig, Rosalind Elias, Regine Crespin – but no Grillo.
Which cast will be performing in the live HD performance this month?
Who ever is scheduled, but not effected by illness. Asks 24 hours before the HD to get the proper answer please.
At least you only have to pay $25 for that.
When someone falls down those stairs and suffers a serious injury, or death, this production will be relegated to land fill. Gelbs going nuts with the reviews, especially The Washington Post. Time for Lil’ Petey to hang it up.
The reviews were right. All of them. Of course in his own mind he can do no wrong.
I think the RBO screening of Tales of Hoffman is on the same night in Belfast as the HD Encore wil be giving the Met HD a miss.
Opera Ireland are really de-prioritising the HD screenings. Think Dublin is the only city that is doing a live relay. Most of the others are doing the encore.
Overall it’s a poor HD season this year.
Going to the January 14th performance , hoping Baek sings the Radames with his spinto sound and big top. Beczala used head voice on the B flat in ” Celeste” in the opening
performance and undoubtedly won’t be well enough to be effective
To be fair, the high Bb at the end of Celeste Aïda is marked pp morendo, so Beczala (who I understand had a terrible night) may well have been trying to honour the composer’s intentions even if through vocal necessity….
Yeah, I’m certain that’s what Peter Gelb said as well…always one to “honor the composer’s intentions”.
You certainly aren’t honoring the composer’s intentions by sending on sick singers – and again after intermission. It’s like doing Mahler 5 with a first trumpet who has flu and is cracking notes all over the place.
“How was that allowed to go on stage”. Don’t they realise that with too few exceptions opera productions are a joke now. Directors thinking they know better than the composer and not helped by the low standard of singers, all too common. Thanks to the invention of electrical recording we can at least hear what real opera singing was all about.
The Met always has covers, but they’re in an impossible bind. The top singers available, when in top form, are barely up to the level that would have sufficed for a solid, non-star cover as recently as the 1970s. (Angel Blue is good, one of the current best, but it would not be kind to compare her “O patria mia” from New Year’s Eve to ANY of the dozens of 20th-century Met broadcasts of Aida…..) So when you have to reach down one further tier for someone willing to sign on as a cover, you don’t really want that someone to sing unless it’s a dire emergency. No blame on the singers here; they are doing their best with a system that lets them down from start to finish.
I saw this korean tenor in Met Turandot last year he is quite good but I don’t think his voice sounds very Italian.
I wonder how much say YNS had in this issue around Beczala performing? Beczala was, by all accounts sick for the dress, so he was immediately questionable for the premiere. Do you think Fritz Reiner or Karajan or Kleiber or Bohm would let this happen? I don’t. I hear them saying “I want the cover or I’m not conducting.” No more Mr “Nice Guy” YNS. Lay down the law.