Crash Landing at the Met

Any singer who has ever been buffeted by a Wagnerian orchestra knows that a performance of Die Walkuere (four hours) calls for the constitution of a wild ox. At a Walkuere performance last week at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera, some of the singers were in sub-ox condition; and before the final curtain fell, substitutes had shuttled on and off the stage in an evening of monumental confusion.

Soprano Birgit Nilsson, scheduled to sing the role of Bruennhilde, had to bow out the evening before the performance. General Manager Rudolf Bing gave the role to Soprano Margaret Harshaw, who was to have sung Sieglinde; into the Sieglinde role went Soprano Gladys Kuchta. One of the Valkyries, Mezzo Gladys Kriese, was ill with tracheitis: her part went to Mezzo Ethel Greene, regularly a member of the chorus.

Somehow, the opera got started on time. But in Act II, just when Baritone Otto Edelmann seemed to be booming along comfortably in the role of Wotan, his voice began to fail. Edelmann withdrew at the end of Act II. He was replaced by Baritone Randolph Symonette, who lasted on stage for only four minutes. "It seemed to me like four hours," said shaken Conductor Erich Leinsdorf, later.

It was apparent to Leinsdorf that Symonette "could not get any music out of his throat." When Symonette finally croaked out the line "Aus meinem Angesicht bist du verbannt" ("From my presence you are banished"), Leinsdorf ordered the curtain rung down.

Conductor Leinsdorf started again after a jump of ten pages in the score to cut out some of the more tortuous vocal passages, and Baritone Edelmann came on again as Wotan, in brighter voice after his rest. Happily, they all made it to the final curtain. "I felt like the pilot who decides on a crash landing," said Leinsdorf. "We made it without the plane going up in flames."

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