Not very professional! The opera house has torn up his contract, but Roberto Alagna intends to sue.
Unprofessional and–if the out-of-context quotes can be taken to mean anything–both arrogant and paranoid. He thinks La Scala should have protected him from being booed?
There’s no way to be sure without reading the contract, but non-performance (you should pardon the expression) is usually considered grounds for termination. Besides, if he was heckled on opening night, what kind of reception does he really expect from the audience after this stunt? Would he take his lumps and soldier on, or make another scene? From his defensive comments, it sounds like it would be the latter.
Fuck this prissy little sissy. I’d have fired his ass in a heartbeat. You do not freaking leave the stage during a performance unless they stretcher you out or something. Security issues over booing? Bullshit. He was never in any danger of having more than his feelings hurt. Kid’s got no heart, and doesn’t belong in the business.
At least the understudy caught a huge opportunity to make a name for himself, and apparently got a nine-minute ovation for his efforts.
I’m no opera-goer, but here’s what I think anyway, which I’m sure no one will agree with:
I feel members of the audience have a responsibility not to boo the performers. That’s just wrong.
Especially in the middle of the performance?
Especially when its not everyone booing, but just you and your friends?
Especially when you’re booing, not because of the performance itself, but because of something the actor had said earlier in an interview?
Nuts, I say. Nuts to that. I’d walk off too. 
-FrL-
By throwing his little hissy fit, all he did was put the marks over. He gave them power by reacting, and he broke kayfabe live onstage. They won. Yeah, booing a performer in most non-sporting events* is rude, but people do it. As a performer, you suck it up and keep performing. Or you go back to your day job and quit embarassing the theatre.
*Of course, I note the exception of the traditional booing/hissing at the villian in mellodrama. There may be others.
Broke what?
I was just about to ask the same question.
In other words, he broke character.
I think it fits. He deviated from the script, broke the fourth wall, destroyed any suspension of disbelief. That’s breaking kayfabe. The wiki acticle even mentions:
In relative terms, a wrestler breaking kayfabe during a show would be likened to an actor breaking character on camera.
I can’t believe Alagna had never heard of the famous loggione and its rowdy denizens. Even Wikipedia has heard of it:
I don’t have time to look for examples right now, but the Pavarotti one is famous in recent times. Italian operagoers are so opinionated that even Gay, the author of The Beggar’s Opera, incorporated a battle of diva sopranos into the show, in London in 1728, to mirror the impassioned artistic battles that took place over there. In NY we had the Astor Place Riot in 1856 or so about an American vs. British actor playing Shakespeare, with actual deaths.
OK, so I’ve subscribed to OPERA NEWS for a few years so I know more than the average guy in the street, but I sure didn’t think I knew more about Milan that Roberto freakin’ Alagna.
I thought the really odd part was that the understudy didn’t have a costume. Wha? What if the tenor had slipped onstage and busted his ankle- would they still have shoved him out sans costume? Was there no opportunity to drag him backstage and change his clothes? Weird.
50 years ago we’d have had the heckler upside down with a tuning fork up his ass.
Here’s a great article from Opera News about La Scala.
And here’s a discussion on the rec.arts.opera newsgroup.
I don’t follow opera at all, but… wow. Walking off stage in the middle of a performance is so unprofessional, I won’t be surprised if this is a career-killing move for him. I’m just baffled that a performer at his level would behave like that.
::crying with laughter::
What’s this? A temperatmental opera star over-reacting and behaving in a diva-ish way? Storming off the stage, only to be replaced and outshone by a brilliant performance by a hitherto unknown understudy? What a totally unheard-of story! I’ve never heard of such a thing! At least, not since that incredibly revelation about the Pope being Catholic. Never saw that coming. And the thing about the bears and the woods. Never saw that coming, either. Smelled it, though.
On the other hand, the wiki article also says:
(emphasis mine)
-FrL-
That whole “modern, popular usage” thing? That’s the way I used it. Though arguing proper usage of carny-speak in a thread about opera is highly amusing…