Keeping Fingers Crossed

On an online opera forum in which we participate, one forum member wrote:

Unfortunately the Met has put forth in its new production [of _Die Walküre_] a singer more suited to Papageno than to Wotan, and has told us that Debbie Voigt is the best choice for Brünnhilde. Such insulting casting and marketing is typical of the Met....

As regular readers of S&F are aware, we've commented previously that Bryn Terfel — a fine singer-actor — was quite clearly miscast as the Wotan of Das Rheingold, a miscasting which, as we've also remarked, will become even more evident with the Walküre and Siegfried Wotans. Prior to last night, we might also have said the same sort of thing about the casting of Deborah Voigt to sing Brünnhilde, but last night we viewed the PBS telecast of the Met's new production of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West (our first experience of this work: a dreadfully silly opera but orchestrally some of the richest writing to ever flow from Puccini's pen, at least in our experience of his work) and the thought that kept running through our mind all night was, "Sonofagun! We may actually have a genuine new Brünnhilde on our hands!"

Well, tonight will tell. We're keeping fingers crossed, so to speak.