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By Matthew Westphal
10 Aug 2007
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| Rolando Villazón |
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| photo by Kasskara/DG |
Tenor Rolando Villazón, whose recent health troubles forced him to withdraw from this year's Salzburg Festival and from three high-profile July galas in Germany, has reportedly cancelled all of his engagements for at least the next two months.
Today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quotes a spokesman for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra stating that Villazón is "ill and has been instructed by his doctor to cancel all performances for the next two to three months in order to make a complete recovery." The tenor was to have appeared at the PSO's season-opening gala on September 15.
Similarly, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports that Villazón will not give any performances for the next two months due to illness and that three different tenors will fill in for him on this month's planned concert tour of Germany with Anna Netrebko (who has evidently recovered from her laryngitis and will perform).
Villazón's health troubles, while not apparently life-threatening, are serious enough that he received warm expressions of sympathy from the Austrian press and from Salzburg Festival officials — even as they were publicly chiding Netrebko and other singers who pulled out of this summer's festival.
The Metropolitan Opera has Villazón scheduled to sing the lead in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette — opposite Netrebko, with whom he has a celebrated onstage partnership — in five performances from September 25 through October 11 (and another four between December 8 and 20). The Met has not yet formally announced Villazón's withdrawal or who might replace him. (Matthew Polenzani is a possible candidate, as he is already booked to sing Roméo in the final two performances of the run.)
No performances beyond this month are currently listed on Villazón's official website.
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