If you follow me on Twitter you may know we had a bit of excitement here a few days ago. We went to see the new Avengers movie (Joss Whedon Forever!) and came out to find a string of missed calls, messages and tweets to the effect that Jonas Kaufmann had cancelled his second performance of Die Walküre at the Met and that Stuart would therefore be going on as Siegmund on May 7th. He was always flying over to New York from London to cover that performance ("One man, two tenors" as Anna Picard put it) but I had planned to stay put here rather than make that lightning visit with him. Confirmation that he'd be singing changed all that; we got home from the movie and within an hour I was booked – thank you, air miles – on the same flights both ways. So tonight, there's a Dutchman; tomorrow, a plane and on Monday, a Walküre. It's madness...and all I have to do is sit in the audience.
Obviously we wish Jonas a speedy recovering from what's ailing him. This change of plans, however, has brought an extra piece of fortuitousness: unlike the performance on April 13th, this one will be broadcast on Sirius XM. Even better, that broadcast will be streamed live via the Met website, so you don't even need Sirius to listen. So yes, you can consider this post a little bit of a shameless plug. Listen! There's Bryn! And Eva! And everyone! And my tenor's pretty good at Siegmund! And since it's a full house, maybe one or two of you who are reading this post might even be there on Monday night. I know I will be. And I'll be bringing the pig.
Comments