Perhaps He Should Stick To Dance

In a review of Lorin Maazel’s return to the Met podium for its production of Die Walküre this past Monday, Clive Barnes, noted dance and drama critic for the New York Post, had this to say:

It took him 45 years, but Lorin Maazel finally re turned to the Metropolitan Opera Monday night, conducting a magnificent performance of Wagner's "Die Walkure."

That's a long intermission, even by operatic standards. But the 79-year-old Maazel — now in his sixth season as music director of the New York Philharmonic — looked trim and happy, and, from Wagner's silkily ponderous opening onward to the closing Fire Music, got gorgeous playing from the Met orchestra.

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[Also] outstanding were Stephanie Blythe, superlative in both voice and Wagnerian bitchery as the righteous Erda [sic!], wife to Wotan, King [sic] of the Gods, and James Morris as Wotan himself.

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Another young American [sic], Adrianne Pieczonka, showed much the same promise as a strong-voiced Sieglinde, Siegmund's sister and incestuous wife.

How's that again? “Silkily ponderous opening”? “Another young American [sic], Adrianne Pieczonka, showed much the same promise as a strong-voiced Sieglinde”? And best of all, “Wagnerian bitchery as the righteous Erda [sic!], wife to Wotan, King [sic] of the Gods”(!)?

Lord preserve us.