Morris out

Caught the very end of tonight's Walkure, the last Leb Wohl for J-Mo. Oh, it was a little raggedy I guess...whatever. It's sort of amazing that for two decades he's been the face of this production, indeed, one of the institutions of opera in New York in the late 20th century.

It's the obvi thing to post, but c'mon, tell me it doesn't get you just a little choked up still. This vulnerable, rash, conflicted, overwhelmingly human portrayal has defined Wotan for a generation of American operagoers, and kept the Ring alive in our minds:



UPDATE: JSU has a lovely closing paragraph about Morris at the end of his review of last night...

He deserved all of the huge ruckus (and love) he inspired at curtain calls -- and more -- but I thought his performance and success here to be almost beyond applause, the sort of thing at which one just goes home in quiet disbelief. He visibly trembled this time as he grasped Brünnhilde at the last -- was it as himself, or as Wotan? What difference, at this point, could there be?