Met Opera Broadcast: Siegfried

As is now typical of them, the Met started their presentation of Siegfried a week ago during the Don Giovanni broadcast by interviewing the star, and they were sure to emphasize how lucky they were to find a Siegfried on such short notice, it being such a hard role to do and their original guy having bailed on them weeks before the opening.  They managed to recruit a Texan who apparently has been working on the role for four years, though not with the thought he’d be performing it on this high profile a stage.  Vocally he pulled it off fine, and in all the various interviews and backstage footage they showed of him Jay Hunter Morris came across as so damn earnest you can’t help but love him, and he brings that perhaps to the character too, who’s enough of an asshole that if you can avoid disliking him for the majority of the show, than the singer has truly accomplished something great.  If he gets a little outsung by some of the others, especially Deborah Voigt, who blew the stage off, it’s okay; he’s done enough.

The production itself also made the best use yet of the set, leaving off absurdities like Valkyries riding the planks in favor of high tech projections including truly remarkable water effects, and even the 3D bird flying about only really goes overboard when it tries to land on Siegfried’s hand and is thus projected on him.  That it didn’t malfunction on Saturday was obviously a point in its favor as well.  Though perhaps the best use of it was actually a lack of light, done when the Wanderer called Erda up, and they made it look like he was floating in mid-air.