Tenor deputised at the Met with blood coursing down one cheek
mainMichael Fabiano stood in last week at the Met on less than seven hours’ notice after Joseph Calleja – the Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor – called in sick.
Fabiano, who caught a train in from Philadelphia, told reporters he had never seen the Met production, let alone rehearsed it. Now he has told the Telegraph newspaper that, unfamiliar with the stage, he suffered a serious accident.
‘I ran off stage and ran into a dark area and hit my head into a light, and really hit the deck,’ he said. Medics had ten minutes to patch him up before he was on again for the tragedy’s climactic scene.
‘I said I had to focus… I had to get ready. I had to think about the last scene, which again I hadn’t done for a year and a half. I needed to take two minutes to think about it.’
There was blood on his face in the closing scene. According to the Telegraph, it can be seen in Ken Howard’s production picture, below.
Is the Met safe enough for singers?
Strange things happen at opera houses. Robert Merrill, one of the Met’s finest baritones, recalled that, on one occasion, a new baritone asked him, “What do you gargle with when your throat’s tired?” Merrill replied, “Mr. Clean.” A few weeks later, the baritone told him, “Mr. Clean is great — once you get over the bubbles!”
What is ‘Mr Clean’? Some kind of detergent? 🙂