Cancellitis

[Richard Tarleton]

Funnily enough, I've seen Martha Argerich several times without a cancellation taking place and considering her notoriety in this regard think I must have been lucky.

Indeed. The one time I had a ticket to hear her, she was to have done a Beethoven concerto with her ex Charles Dutoit conducting. She pulled out at short notice, and instead we got Kyung Wha Chung playing the Brahms - not bad, though I'd rather have seen Argerich.

[Barbirollians]

Sometimes there can be benefits . A friend of mine some years back was delighted when the advertised Don Giovanni was replaced by Tom Allen - the house roared its approval .

Gheoghiu is surely the most legendary of modern cancellers.

[Chris Newman]

Sometimes there can be benefits . A friend of mine some years back was delighted when the advertised Don Giovanni was replaced by Tom Allen - the house roared its approval ..

In 1969 the Covent Garden audience for Berlioz's "Les Troyens" groaned sadly when David Webster announced that the wonderful Josephine Veasey was indisposed but you should have heard the cheer when the substitute was announced: Janet Baker singing in English. I have the recording.

A very interesting and pertinent article on cancellitis (sp?) in today's Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/mar/21/home-secretary-visa-rules-arts?INTCMP=SRCH

[LHC]

Sometimes there can be benefits . A friend of mine some years back was delighted when the advertised Don Giovanni was replaced by Tom Allen - the house roared its approval .

When ENO put on a new production of Parsifal in the 80s with Goodall conducting, the Parsifal, Warren Ellsworth, was unwell and unable to perform the opening night.

The announcement of his indisposition was greeted with the inevitable groans. They changed to cheers when his replacement was announced - Siegfried Jerusalem. In fact, ENO were able to steal a march on Covent Garden thanks to this substitution. Jerusalem was due to make his UK operatic debut a few days later as Erik in the Dutchman, but agreed to step in at short notice. Thus, his UK debut was made at ENO rather than Covent Garden.

Similarly, Lucia Popp sang Ilia in a performance of Idomeneo at ENO as a late replacement.

A few year's ago I attended a performance of La Boheme at Covent Garden with Gheorghui. Rodolfo was to have been sung by a young chinese tenor who pulled out. The sub on the night we went was Rolando Villazon, who sang gloriously. He was at the Opera House to sing the Duke in Rigoletto and apparently became the first person since Caruso to sing both the Duke and Rodolfo in the same week there.

At a concert at the Barbican a few years ago was to have featured Thomas Hampson and Susan Graham singing arias and duets. Hampson pulled out a few weeks before the concert. Bryn Terfel agreed to step in. Then, on the eve of the concert, Susan Graham also had to pull out. Luckily, Sarah Connolly stepped in for her. So, having booked for Hampson and Graham, we ended up with Terfel and Connolly and a rather different sequence of arias (and no duets - understandable given the lack of rehearsal).

Finally, at last year's Otello performances at the Barbican, Simon O'Neill memorably stood in for Torsten Kerl and gave a sterling performance in a role he had never sung before!

[Alf-Prufrock]

I remember in the sixties going up to London to see Swan Lake in the afternoon and an opera (I forget which) in the evening. (The things we do as youngsters!) The cast was definitely second-list. However, we got the announcement that owing to indisposition Mme So-and-so would not dance Odette-Odile, but at short notice Svetlana Beriosova was standing in. The cheers! She was one of the dancers I had wanted to see for years. And she was wonderful.

[Mandryka]

In 1999, I remember a clearly terrified Rita Cullis standing in for Cheryl Studer (then just starting to have the problems that were shortly to overwhelm her), after the latter had pulled out of the programmed final monologue from Capriccio that afternoon. To this day, I've never seen anyone who so obviously wished the ground would swallow her up.

To my (comparatively) untutored ear, Cullis sounded OK, though I heard an audience member in front of me sneeringly refer to her as 'the lady who got out of the bath'.

[Flosshilde]

he's giving a young up-and-coming conductor a chance to shine.

I expect someone has already pointed this out, but Stéphane Denève is probably is a bit past* being 'up and coming', & quite nicely situated already. He'll be Chief Conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra from September 2011, when he steps down from being chief conductor of the RSNO.

*which makes him sound rather older than he is. I just mean that he is well established as a conductor.

[Petrushka]

Of course, you can never know whether that unknown conductor who replaced the one you really went to see doesn't turn out to be the next Big Star. There are numerous examples such as Leonard Bernstein becoming an overnight sensation when he replaced an ailing Bruno Walter at a 1943 NYPO concert and Gustavo Dudamel appearing at a Prom as a near total unknown a few years back.

[rodney_h_d]

"Sorry, tonight's conductor has been replaced by Carlos Kleiber" [!]

I believe that Karl Bohm never had a single cancellation until well into his 80's when a fall in a London hotel obliged him to pull out of a Brahms concert with the LSO.

That's a good record! In 1981, only a couple of months before his death, Karl Böhm was unable to fulfil some engagements with the LSO and on 9th June 1981, was replaced at the Royal Festival Hall by none other than Carlos Kleiber in that notorious concert so criticised in the press that Kleiber never conducted another concert in London. I was there and the only possibly controversial thing about his conducting was the very fast tempo adopted for the second movement Allegretto from Schubert's 3rd Symphony, which I admit did initially make me raise my eyebrows.

Happily, I was lucky enough to hear Kleiber conduct three operas at the ROH Covent Garden including La Boheme and Electra.

[tom_960]

...I was lucky enough to hear [Carlos] Kleiber conduct....

So was I - just once, during his final run of Rosenkavaliers in Vienna in 1994. Previously, in Feb 1992 iirc, we saw that he was due to perform a modified re-run of the New Year's Day concert (together with Schubert 8) with the VPO in Paris. Thrilled, we booked tickets, hotel, flight etc. When we go to the Theatre des Champs Elysees to pick up the tickets, we were told that the concert had been cancelled.

The other high-profile cancellation that I remember best was at an Aldeburgh Festival in the mid-70s. Instead of Richter we got Cherkassky. OK, I know he was amazing and had/has many admirers, but the repertoire and the flamboyant style were SO different from we were hoping for that it was quite a let-down.

As others have said, sometimes it cuts the other way. I'm sad that I never heard Barbirolli live - I was booked to hear him with the Halle in Ely Cathedral in c. 1970, shortly before he died. He cancelled, and we got a young, relatively unknown (at that time) guy called James Loughran, who made a very strong impression. Also, iirc, Bartoli's UK debut at the Wigmore Hall was postponed by a week or so, which meant that I was able to attend, whereas I couldn't have been there on the original date. Breathtaking singing - we were in the front row.