Temper, temper!

December 11, 2006
Tenor Walks Off Stage at La Scala
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:11 p.m. ET

MILAN, Italy (AP) -- Tenor Roberto Alagna broke his contract by walking out of a performance of Franco Zeffirelli's ''Aida'' at La Scala after being booed, and he will not sing for the remaining scheduled performances, a spokesman for the opera house said Monday.

Alagna stunned the audience and his colleagues by marching off the stage after the audience booed him following the opening aria ''Celeste Aida'' on Sunday night. An understudy in jeans took over immediately.

Despite his reaction, Alagna told a news conference Monday that he intended to sing as scheduled Thursday. But management at the famed opera house said that would not happen.

''It's been brought to our attention Roberto Alagna's intention to return to La Scala for the next performance,'' spokesman Carlo Maria Cella said. ''His behavior has created a rift between the artist and the audience, and there is no possibility of repairing this relationship.''

Cella said Alagna had technically broken the contract, and that the legal office would evaluate what action to take.

''He did not leave because he was sick; he left voluntarily,'' Cella said.

La Scala general manager Stephane Lissner released a statement earlier criticizing Alagna for ''an obvious lack of respect to the public and the theater,'' but he also was critical of the audience's behavior.

''I have always maintained that artists are at the center of a theatrical project and we are here to support them, to guarantee the best conditions for them so that they can do their jobs,'' Lissner said.

Alagna rejected accusations that he did not sing well.

''I finished without the slightest error and from the balconies came a 'bravo!' and right after that boos and whistles,'' Alagna told reporters Monday. ''I thought the audience would have defended me, but it didn't. So I obeyed the audience that demonstrated that it did not want me.

''If I don't have the joy of singing, I can't do it. I have to quit,'' he said. ''To sing with whistles and boos, you risk singing off-key.''

He also had told La Repubblica newspaper: ''I do not deserve this kind of reception.''

''What else could I do?'' Alagna told Italy's Tg5 news. ''Did I have to stay there ... until my voice broke?''

Thursday night's opening of ''Aida'' was a much-anticipated event, with Italian Premier Romano Prodi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel among the many prominent figures in attendance.

That audience applauded for more than 15 minutes after the final curtain fell, standing to cheer Zeffirelli, conductor Riccardo Chailly and a cast led by the Lithuanian mezzo-soprano Violeta Urmana in the title role and Alagna as Radames.

But the second performance did not go quite as smoothly.

Alagna came onstage and began singing. After a ''nervous start,'' according to people in the audience, Alagna started on the ''Celeste Aida'' aria, which prompted a chorus of boos and whistles. Alagna stopped, looked at the audience, then walked off the stage.

Understudy Antonello Palombi, still in jeans, rushed out.

Lissner apologized to the audience before the opening of the third act.

''In many years at La Scala I had never seen anything like what happened tonight,'' Chailly told reporters after the performance.

The next performance was scheduled for Tuesday night.

Thanks for passing this along, Lilithcat. Seems the great days of opera melodramatics that are not in the libretto aren't over after all!

To all: What is the oddest or most interesting reason for a singer not continuing, after commencing, in a performance that you were attending?

Here's mine: We were at S.F. Opera for Die Zauberflote a couple of years ago. In the Queen of the Night's great coloratura aria in act one, Ms. So&So cracked one of the high notes Really badly. Before the second act started, an announcement was made that Ms. So&So was unable to continue. Startled laughter from the audience ensued.

Her understudy took over and the show went on. Most of us, while not forgetting the mangled note of course, would not have thought that much less of Ms. So&So had she simply gone on. Now she is immortalized in our minds as the one who couldn't muster the courage to go on after blowing a single note.

More on Alagna's walk out at La Scala:

"Ousted Tenor Blames Low Blood Sugar

MILAN, Italy - Roberto Alagna, the tenor who quit the stage at Milan's La Scala after being booed, said Friday he plans to sue the famed opera house for damaging his reputation by dismissing him from the cast of "Aida." He claimed he suffered low blood sugar and couldn't continue the performance."

ParterreBox is rather amusing (when are they not?) on the subject, particularly the entry titled "But more about Antonello later".

I couldn't even read an article I wanted to on Parterre - the link went to somewhere else.
Very strange publication: bitchy would be the best adjective, I believe...

I like to think of Parterre as sort of a blog as performance art. La Cieca, the blog's owner/administrator, affects a deliberately "campy" persona and the bitchiness, even the occasional venom, is part of that campiness. I think whether one likes the blog or not is purely a matter of "taste" (in ye old "no point in disputing the purely personal" sense) and I have friends whose judgment I respect who fall on quite opposite sides of the issue.

I enjoy the blog although it loses the fun for me if I check into it too often. Once a week or so though, I find it a pleasant diversion to immerse myself in La Cieca's wonderfully over-the-top operatic universe.

Then I shall have another go - later.
Maybe in a month or so.
:-)