Soldier Dodges Bullet

Mathias Goerne steps in for Thomas Hampson in Wozzeck.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Getting the axe: Thomas Hampson has withdrawn from tonight's Wozzeck due to illness.
Matthias Goerne will sing the title role in Berg's opera.
Photo by Cory Weaver © 2014 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera has a major casting change in tonight's first season performance of Wozzeck: the title role.

Recordings Review: The Hero on the Podium

Christian Thielemann is the star of this new Vienna Ring.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Getting the point: Siegfried (Stephen Gould) swears on Hagen's (Erik Halfvarson) spear in
Act II of Götterdämmerung from the Vienna State Opera. These performances are the
basis for the new CD cycle conducted by Christian Thielemann.

Any recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen is a major artistic statement. When you're the Vienna State Opera, whose orchestra members recorded the first studio cycle of the operas (as the Vienna Philharmonic under the late Georg Solti), that statement must be of the utmost profundity. After all, the "Solti Ring" from 1958-1964 remains the industry standard for opera recordings and stereo demonstration, and features an all-star cast from the silver age of 20th century Wagner singing.

Opera Review: The Rules of Engagement

The Gotham Chamber Opera offers a twin bill at the Met.
(The other Met.)
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Arms and Armor Court of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, setting for last week's
performance by the Gotham Chamber Opera.
Photo © 2014 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Gotham Chamber Opera has a reputation for staging opera in obscure, even impractical locales. From the planetarium dome of the American Museum of Natural History (Il Mondo della Luna) to the cramped burlesque club The Box (last season's Eliogablio), this company has come to embody a new aesthetic of opera, freed from the confines of an opera house or theater. Last week, the company came up with an innovative way to mount two works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Monteverdi's I combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and the world premiere performances of I Have No Stories To Tell You, by Gotham's very own composer-in-residence Lembert Beecher.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Wozzeck

Berg's blood-soaked psychodrama returns to the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Deborah Voigt and Thomas Hampson make their role debuts in Wozzeck March 6.
Photo by Cory Weaver © 2014 The Metropolitan Opera.

Thomas Hampson makes his first appearance in the title role of Wozzeck, the story of a soldier whose lowly life is nothing but suffering. Deborah Voigt appears as Marie, his perpetually unfaithful common-law wife. (Neither artist has sung these difficult roles before.) James Levine is scheduled to conduct these performances.