The aria was “Recondita armonia,” about Cavaradossi’s love for Tosca. His task was to sweep Callas away, in spite of herself, with the same aria from Puccini’s “Tosca” eight times a week. The show started in Philadelphia and went to Los Angeles before opening on Broadway, and Morris stayed with it through several years and three leading ladies - Zoe Caldwell, Patti LuPone and Dixie Carter. “I was Tony Tightpants,” says Morris, tongue-in-cheek, referring to the student tenor with a big ego who eventually gets Callas’ attention. Morris first came to New York City’s attention in 1995, in a Broadway show - a supporting role in Terrence McNally’s “Master Class,” about the legendary diva Maria Callas in her later years. Morris may look and sound like a natural as the guileless hero of “Siegfried” and “Götterdämmerung,” but he says his path to the Met was in no way foreseen: “I’d love to tell you I had a voice inside my head telling me that sometime I would be a Wagnerian heldentenor and sing ‘Siegfried,’ but that is not the way it was.” The chronicle of Morris’ sensational last-minute Met debut earlier this season is captured here: “There were not really any indicators – none – that I would have the year I’ve had.” “I was getting supporting roles and maybe some understudy parts, but the big roles just didn’t come,” said Morris. There is no mistaking the delighted “I just won the lottery” lilt in his voice as he looks back at the incredible season that has put him on every opera company’s speed dial. “I’m very fond of saying that I clawed my way up to the lower middle echelon of my field,” he said by telephone from the Met, where at last, near his own half-century mark, he is an overnight star. ![]() Like so many talented artists who have labored in the trenches, watching their chance for that Big Break wane with each passing year, Jay Hunter Morris was at a place in his career where he felt stuck. If you haven’t yet caught up with opera’s Cinder-fella Jay Hunter Morris, there is an optimal opportunity mid-day Saturday to see the tall, blond Texas tenor as the hero Siegfried in the Metropolitan Opera’s live HD broadcast of Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung” (The Twilight of the Gods). Morris plays the hero Siegfried in the Met’s HD broadcast of Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung” at cinemas worldwide Saturday, Feb. Interview: The Texas native talks about his unlikely mid-career burst into stardom at the Metropolitan Opera.
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