Die Walküre Live Now
For those who haven't yet seen the new Robert LePage production of Wagner's Die Walküre at the Met, today's your last chance to hear it this season. The house itself has been sold out for months, but you can still experience it right now on the radio or in the HD broadcast at movie theaters around the world. Today's performance got off to a late start thanks to a problem with The Machine, but everything has been flying since then.
This is also the last chance any of us will be seeing James Levine this season who, under doctors' orders, has pulled out of all Met and BSO performances until the fall. There's been some speculation that today's Walküre might in fact be his final performance, but after hearing Jimmy on a pre-broadcast interview with Margaret Juntwait, he sounds as vital and energetic as ever. Not to mention it'll take a legion of Valkyries to keep him off the podium for Siegfried and Götterdämmerung next season.
Sorry, Fabio: you'll just have to wait your turn. (Act II is on now.)