Answer: at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, watching the lovely and talented Kristine Opolais sing the role of Mimi in La Bohème.
Why does Ms. Opolais rock? (Apart from being generally amazing, that is?)
She is a great lover of Puccini’s operas. She was cast as the lead in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” at the Met, and had just sung the role to thunderous applause for the first time at the Met on a Friday last month. She stayed up until 5 AM celebrating her debut.
At 5:30, her phone rang. The Met’s general manager was calling with a request… well, with a request that would not have seemed out of place in an opera: the matinee performance of La Bohème was in eight hours, and the lead actress was sick. Would she mind terribly singing Mimi?
No rehearsal – she had sung the role before, but not at the Met and not with this company. And not only was the live audience there, but the show was being broadcast to movie theaters around the world as part of the “Live in HD,” series to promote opera. Total expected audience: 300,000 people.
La Boheme was the first live opera I saw. My little town lacked for access to high culture but a local banker’s wife, a staunch Republican, by the way, just to help dispel the myths, invited a group of high school girls to go to a larger nearby town to have a taste of the finer arts.
I hope you swoon at the lovely, tubercular maiden.
Reminds me of the performance of *Die Valküre, *when Hildegarde Behrens filled in for a struggling Brunhilde at the Met. When it was announced after the first act, there was an audible gasp, with applause, and I don’t think one person left during the long intermission. I was privileged to have been there.
The story reminds me of Rachele Gilmore’s 100 MPH Fastball, which is just :eek:. When I lived in New York I had a subscription to the met, but never happened into such a lucky moment–there was the (IIRC) double encore in the last performance of L’Elisir, though. Lovely stuff.
