Man in audience steps up to save Covent Garden Bohème
mainThe Stage has the exclusive on this:
Charles Castronovo saved (Friday night’s) performance of La Boheme at the Royal Opera House starring his wife Ekaterina Siurina, when he stepped in mid-show to sing the role of her lover.
Siurina was playing the lead role of Mimi, alongside Atalla Ayan as her lover Rodolfo.
When a problem with Avan’s voice forced him to stop singing, Castronovo, who had been watching from the audience, stood in and sang the role at the side of the stage, while Ayan acted it….
Read on here.
And that national treasure Stephen Fry crying and calling it “..a La BooHoo to remember.””
Sometimes theater in the theater is more memorable, as the show must go on. Stephen Fry may lament the lack of musical quality, but one cannot deny the gallant rescue act by Mimi’s real lover who leapt from the audience to save her and everyone else’s night. I am sure some sort of thrill must have been had at the opera house…;-)
Stephen Fry did not “lament the musicality”.
I am pretty much sure that they had a regular understudy for this performance. Had they used this less spectacular option, the whole drama would have come to nothing special.
Didn’t this happen at the Proms in the seventies, during a performance of Carmina Burana?
Here’s the link:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csv27g