Break A Leg!

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- When people say “break a leg” to a singer, they don’t mean it literally. That was no comfort to American mezzo Joyce DiDonato, who broke her fibia during a show at London’s Royal Opera House on Saturday.

After having received rapturous applause for her fiery entrance aria in Rossini’s comedy “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” DiDonato stumbled when walking across the stage. A few moments later, she left the set, returned with a stick and carried on performing. It looked like she had sprained her ankle.

DiDonato later revealed on her blog that she had, in fact, broken her fibia. There’s a picture of her sitting in a hospital looking glum in her plaster cast.

Incredibly, her performance after the accident was as full of comic sparkle and zippy coloratura as before. She decorated her crutch with a pink flower, and used it to bash bits of the set when her character was having a tantrum.

Her heroic actions take the concept of “the show must go on” to new heights. DiDonato received the largest standing ovation I’ve seen at the Royal Opera, where audiences aren’t prone to physical displays of excitement.


For all that, she was almost upstaged by her co-star Juan Diego Florez. The Peruvian tenor was cast in the role of her boyfriend Count Almaviva, and he included the fiendishly fast and high aria “Cessa di piu resistere.” A graveyard for tenors -- I’ve heard a few who have crashed in the attempt --the aria’s often cut because it’s too difficult.

Stratospheric Tenor

Florez sailed through it without breaking sweat. Just when it seemed he couldn’t take his liquid-gold voice any faster or higher, he would smile and pop out another stratospheric trill.

The applause was so long that baritone Alessandro Corbelli got a laugh by pointedly looking at his watch.

It didn’t hurt that Florez looked dazzling in a slim-cut frock coat over a ruffled shirt, rather like a dandy from the 1960s. It was all part of the amusing production aesthetic (directors Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser), which mixed 18th- century furniture and props with 1960s polka dots and stripes. Though it felt bare when it first appeared in 2005, this time around the staging was funnier and zippier, with plenty of comic detail.

There was terrific support from Corbelli as a delightfully pompous Bartolo, and Ferruccio Furlanetto as a Don Basilio who wheezed and chuckled with secret joy as he outlined his cunning plans to thwart the lovers.

Antonio Pappano’s conducting was light as a souffle. Though tickets are rare, the show will be broadcast to outdoor screens around the U.K. on July 15 as part of the BP Summer Big Screen project.

Will DiDonato sing from her wheelchair? Watch this space.

Foto credit: Joyce DiDonato & Intermezzo