Promise Or Threat?

[Note: This post has been updated (1) as of 11:15 PM Eastern on 19 Feb. See below.]

Via Alex Ross, this link to a prospectus for a new production of Wagner's Ring.

Alex, in an as per usual brilliantly apposite choice of words, characterizes the prospectus as "disturbingly plausible," which it most assuredly is, absurdist though it was intended to be. But with seeming ambiguous intent, Alex titles his post, "Paging Lepage", referring to the announced director of the Met's new production of the Ring (to be presented over the 2010-2012 seasons): film and theater director, Robert Lepage. From my limited and "canned" experience of Lepage's work for the justly celebrated Cirque du Soleil, my feeling is that if the director of this new Ring can't be Julie Taymor (whom Alex and I previously agreed it should be), then Met general manager designate Peter Gelb's choice of Lepage as director seems to me to offer at least a prospect filled with promise.

But, then, Alex must surely have wider exposure to and greater knowledge of Lepage's work than I, and so if the seemingly ambiguous title of Alex's post is really a sly but pertinent jab at the choice of Lepage as director for the Met's planned new production of the Ring, then my prospect filled with promise morphs instantly into one filled with disappointment and deep dismay.

What else is new.

---

Update (11:15 PM Eastern on 19 Feb): Alex informs me that his post title was merely for jesting literary effect, and not in any way intended as a jab at the choice of Lepage as director for the Met's new production of the Ring.

I'm relieved to hear it.