We So Do Want To Believe This

The following is altogether quite unbelievable. It's so outrageously hilarious, however, that we're loath to question its veracity.

The Royal Danish Opera opened its season with a new production of Offenbach´s Contes d´Hoffmann. Just before curtain-up, General Director Kasper Bech Holten appeared onstage and made the following announcement:

Johnny Van Hal [the Hoffmann] unfortunately is ill, and his cover, Nikolai Schukoff, who is available for all other evenings is unfortunately not available this evening. After phoning all over Europe, a tenor, Timothy Richards, was found in Berlin who is capable of singing the role, and we asked him to come immediately. Then Scandinavian Airlines cancelled all flights from Berlin to Copenhagen. But at the last minute, Mr. Richards got on another flight and arrived in time for tonight's performance. After he arrived, however, it was discovered that the version of Hoffmann Mr. Richards can sing is not the version used in our production despite repeated assurances from his agent that it was. Consequently, some of what Mr. Richards will sing tonight will be in French, some in German, and what he can't sing at all will be sung instead by our conductor, Marc Soustrot.

Oh, please let that all be true!

For the outcome of all this, see this post.