Thomas Hampson will make his Royal Opera debut in the coming season as Amfortas in a "Parsifal" of the highest promise. Simon Rattle conducts (is it possible that only for the second time since his 1990 debut?), Stig Andersen is Parsifal; SF hearthtrob Violeta Urmana is Kundry. John Tomlinson is the Gurnemanz, Willard W. White is the Klingsor (and Bluebeard in the Bartok, with Katarina Dalayman), Alfred Reiter (debut) is the Titurel. Klaus Michael Grueber is director, on Gilles Aillaud's sets. The run is Dec. 8-20, so if anyone is looking for a Christmas present for me, you know what to do. There is an interesting senior cast for "Tosca" - Carol Vaness, Luciano Pavarotti, Sergei Leiferkus. (According to press reports today, Pavarotti's contract for the July 14 Hyde Park concert specifies that he doesn't have to walk more than 25 feet at any time, and his hotel suite is to have rice for 10 people. Let's see if his contract will exclude any kind of torture in "Tosca.") Apparently, the "Frau ohne Schatten" at one time planned for SFO is going to Covent Garden, with Deborah Voigt, the Emperor's role shared by Johan Botha and Glenn Winslade; Alan Titus is the Barak, Gabriele Schnaut is cast perfectly as the shrill Dyers's Wife. Christoph von Dohnanyi conducts; it's the John Cox-David Hockney production. "Attila," is cast with Maria Guleghina, Orlin Anastassov and Paata Burchuladze - good people but what's so Slavic about early Verdi? The rest of the Royal Opera season: "Rigoletto" (with Schaefer, Alvarez, Gavanelli), "Jenufa," Haydn's "L'anima del Filosofo" (with Bartoli), "The Bartered Bride," "Cosi fan Tutte" (Jonathan Miller's production), "The Turn of the Screw," "Don Giovanni" (with Terfel), "La Sonnambula" (with Elena Kelessidi and Juan Diego Florez), "Tristan und Isolde" (Heppner-Schnaut), "Il Trovatore" (Cura!), "Daphne" and "La Rondine" (Christian Thielemann conducting), "La Boheme," "Macbeth," "Queen of Spades" (Domingo), "Otello" and "Roberto Devereux." It's good to see the Royal back in action, after recent uncertainties and doubts about its future. Janos Gereben/SF [log in to unmask]