When it came time for curtain at the Berlin Staatsoper, Lance Ryan was nowhere to be found.
"We don't know where our lead tenor is," Staatsoper staff said from the stage. The audience, having settled in for Siegfried (the third opera in Wagner's epic Ring cycle), was none too happy.
Talk about coming in late...amirite?
Luckily, Andreas Schager, who had sung the demanding Wagnerian role before, was slated for The Magic Flute with the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle on the same stage just a few hours later.
15 minutes before curtain call, conductor Daniel Barenboim made an executive decision: Schager would sing the tenor part from the wings.
Meanwhile, an assistant director donned Ryan's digs and went to work.
Everything must've worked out, as The Telegraph's Daisy Bowie-Sell tells us Schager received "thunderous applause" after Barenboim, himself, took the replacement tenor out for a first act curtain call.
Mr. Ryan arrived in time to sing Act II, but according to Bowie-Sell, "[Ryan] got only lukewarm applause from the German audience."
Ryan gave no reason for his tardiness, but the word around the house is his timing was all wrong. Siegfried is a five-hour long opera, so Barenboim had pushed back the curtain to 4 p.m.
Someone should've told Siegfried.
Lest you think that Lance Ryan got cold feet, here's his Act I for Strasbourg Opéra in 2009 (David McVicar's staging, Claus Peter Flor behind the podium).
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