Peter Stein bows out of Met Opera's New Production of Boris Godunov

The Metropolitan Opera announced today that Stephen Wadsworth, the head of dramatic studies for the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program., will replace German extreme-theater practitioner Peter Stein as director of the fall season's new production of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. The Met Opera attributed the withdrawal to "personal reasons."

For those enchanted by their first experience of Stein earlier this month, when he brought his 12-hour production of Dostoevsky's "The Demons" to Lincoln Center Festival, the news comes as a blow. But the production, which will premiere on Monday, October 11, will continue to have Valery Gergiev as conductor, and René Pape is scheduled to sing the title role for the first time at the Met, after doing so to acclaim last year in his hometown of Dresden. Other roles he has performed for the first time at the Met, where he has appeared in every season since 1995, include Méphistophélès in Faust, Gurnemanz in Parsifal, Escamillo in Carmen, and the Old Hebrew in Samson et Dalila.