Reviewing James Levine and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra.
Boston Globe, July 13, 2009.
Concert opera is always a touch surreal—hey, all those Meistersinger are in James Bond tuxedos!—but Morris and Botha had the inspired idea to put their on-stage drinking water in old-fashioned beer steins.
Update (7/13): Lisa Hirsch noticed that I called baritone Hans-Joachim Ketelsen a tenor, which is the sort of thing that happens when I move clauses around one too many times. (For those of you keeping score at home, that’s two embarrassing slips so far this year—giving me a fielding average of .926.)
Further update: now fixed.
Glad you spotted that. In the chorus, we weren't sure if that was visible to the crowd. It apparently was a joke that grew, because only James Morris had a stein during the dress rehearsal, but they both had one for the performance.