"It felt not like a debut performance, but like the emergence of a Wotan destined for the world’s major Wagner stages."
- scofieldbaritone
- 2d
- 1 min read
Daniel Scofield’s Last-Minute Substitution Leads a Strong Cast
The production was originally to feature Matthias Goerne as Wotan, but he withdrew at the very last moment before opening night. His replacement, American baritone Daniel Scofield, was a role debut—yet nothing in his performance suggested an emergency substitution. Although his only prior experience with Wotan was as cover for Christopher Maltman at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 2023, Scofield appeared in Monaco as an artist already in full possession of the role. His vocal security, stylistic assurance, German diction and dramatic intelligence placed him immediately among today’s most compelling interpreters of Wotan. He commanded the stage with apparent ease, tracing the god’s vast emotional trajectory—from imperious self-confidence and volcanic rage to shame, resignation, and profoundly human paternal tenderness—with striking coherence and depth. His incisive rhythmic delivery gave bite to passages such as the Act three confrontation with Brünnhilde, where the repeated “gegen mich doch” (“yet against me”) phrases crackled with tension. The final “Leb’ wohl!”(“Farewell”) was shaped with such vocal nobility and emotional inevitability that it felt not like a debut performance, but like the emergence of a Wotan destined for the world’s major Wagner stages.
