Heppner Baker and Lehman

Not an uptown New York law firm, but the three tenors, anyone of whom might be singing the title role in Wagner's Parsifal this Friday at the MET. It all started about two weeks ago when Ben Heppner began to lose control of his voice during the run of Lohengrin. After Heppner cracked towards the end of Act II during the Saturday broadcast, the tenor himself must have seen the writing on the wall, and he failed to sing this week's dress rehearsal of Parsifal. In his place, Mark Baker took over the title role and, according to a friend who was at the house for the rehearsal, things were very unsteady for the replacement tenor.

The MET fearing total disaster on opening night this Friday has now hired Gary Lehman (pictured above) who got rave reviews when he filled in for an ailing Plácido Domingo during the run of the Robert Wilson production of Parsifal this past winter in Los Angeles. He will be the understudy to the understudy. I guess we won't know who's going to sing Parsifal this Friday until we open our Playbills!