Thursday, September 15, 2016

Not Quite the First of the Season

From the Met comes news of a cast change for an upcoming opera; Rolando Villazon withdraws from Don Giovanni performances, to be replaced by Paul Appleby:
Paul Appleby will sing the role of Don Ottavio in this season’s September and October performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, replacing Rolando Villazón, who has withdrawn due to illness. In addition to the October 15 matinee, which Appleby was already scheduled to sing, the American tenor will now perform the role on September 27, October 1 matinee, 5, 8, 11, 19, and 22 matinee.


4 comments:

Unknown said...

I was rooting for Rolando but this is not shocking in the least. I assume Appleby (who was originally had a single performance) was also the cover on the chance this would happen.

Lisa Hirsch said...

I'm sure you're right about that - we saw a similar situation in SF two years ago, when Juliana di Giacomo took over a run of Amelia in Ballo after the cancelation of Krassimira Stoyanova. Di Giacomo had been assigned one or two performances at the end of the run.

She was very good, so maybe she'll be back some time.

Unknown said...

I haven't heard Di Giacomo in ages (she hasn't sung at the Met in a good 5 years or more). Heard her go on for Radvanovsky in Stiffelio. It was a solid, if somewhat unremarkable, performance.

CruzSF said...

I too was rooting for Villazon. He seems to be doing so well in the continental Europe houses. Maybe it's time for him to leave the Met behind him.