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By Matthew Westphal
20 Mar 2007
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| Karita Mattila (left) and Christine Brewer |
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| photo by Lauri Eriksson (Mattila), Dario Acosta (Brewer) |
Due to illness, soprano Karita Mattila has cancelled her appearances this weekend as Leonore in the Boston Symphony's concert performances of Beethoven's Fidelio with music director James Levine. The role is one she has sung to great acclaim under Levine at the Metropolitan Opera several times since 2000.
Filling in for Mattila will be Christine Brewer, the widely admired dramatic soprano. This will be Brewer's third high-profile substitution in little more than a year: she replaced Deborah Voigt in an acclaimed Beethoven Missa Solemnis with Levine and the BSO in January 2006, and last July she jetted to California to fill in for Renée Fleming at the gala finale of the first Festival del Sole in the Napa Valley.
More recently, both ladies figured in a critics' list, published in the current issue of BBC Music magazine, of the top 20 sopranos of the recording era: Mattila was ranked at no. 15, with Brewer at no. 17.
Brewer will join tenor Johan Botha (Florestan), tenor Matthew Polenzani (Jaquino), bass Robert Lloyd (Rocco), bass-baritone Albert Dohmen (Don Pizarro), soprano Lisa Milne (Marzelline), and bass-baritone James Morris (Don Fernando), along with the BSO and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, for three performances of Fidelio: Friday (March 23), Sunday (March 25) and next Tuesday (March 27). More details are available at www.bso.org.
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