The Italian tenor who made his Metropolitan Opera debut Saturday with only five minutes notice — wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers — called his surprise performance “the crowning of a dream.”
“The Met is the holy grail of opera,” Francesco Anile said through his manager, Lewis Ehlers. “The theater is one of the biggest and most famous, and you have to have nerves of steel.”
Anile grabbed worldwide attention Saturday when the lead actor in Verdi’s “Otello” began to lose his voice during the fourth and final act — prompting the stage director to call upon the 54-year-old understudy as he lounged in the green room, texting.
With no time to change, Anile threw on a black cape and rushed to the edge of the stage to aid the ailing Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko — singing Otello’s lines as Antonenko mouthed the aria and acted out the scene.
A spotlight shined on Anile as he stood stage right, illuminating his waist-length cape, blue jeans, and gray sneakers.
Otello’s character strangles his wife, Desdemona, during the pivotal 13-minute scene, before stabbing himself to death.
Anile said he wasn’t nervous, having played the role of Otello for over 11 years “around the world.”
“I’m not young,” he said. “I don’t get nervous. I just know what you have to do.”
“He was apologetic that he put me in that situation,” Anile said of his ill colleague, Antonenko. “But it’s my job to be here and be ready, and to go on at a moment’s notice.”
Anile received a standing ovation, Ehlers added.
“The audience went crazy,” the manager said. “Americans always recognize the one who saves the day.”