THE METROPOLITAN OPERA
Last-minute cast changes happen routinely in opera, but seldom with the mix of anxiety and, in the end, triumph that took place on Thursday when the Metropolitan Opera revived its 1997 production of Berg’s “Wozzeck.”
The distinguished German baritone Matthias Goerne, an acclaimed Wozzeck, agreed on Thursday morning to step in that night for an ailing Thomas Hampson
That Mr. Goerne is a great Wozzeck was clear from his wrenching performance with the Philharmonic. At the Met on Thursday, he so completely inhabited the role — that of a delusional, miserably poor soldier living in a German garrison town around 1830 — and so dominated the stage, that you would have thought that he had spent weeks rehearsing in this stark, gripping production by Mark Lamos, with minimal props, black walls, looming shadows and blotches of bloody reds.
—The New York Times
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Conductor: James Levine
Production: Mark Lamos
Designer: Robert Israel
Lighting Designer: James F. Ingalls
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Wozzeck: Matthias Goerne/Thomas Hampson
Marie: Deborah Voigt
Captain: Peter Hoare
Drum Major: Simon O'Neill
Doctor: Clive Bayley*
Andres: Russell Thomas
Margret: Tamara Mumford
1st Apprentice: Richard Bernstein
2nd Apprentice: Mark Schowalter
Fool: Philippe Castagner
Soldier: Daniel Clark Smith
Townsman: Raymond Aparentado
Child: Anthony Reznikovsky*
Piano Solo: Bradley Moore*
* = debut
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March 6, 10, 13, 17, 22 2014