The Italian tenor who made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera on a moment’s notice last weekend — while still wearing a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers — got another chance in the spotlight Thursday night.
Only this time, he had plenty of notice.
Seasoned opera singer Francesco Anile, 54, got the call at around noon that he would be filling in for Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko in the title role for the full performance of Verdi’s
“Otello” because Antonenko is ill.
On Saturday night, Anile stepped in as Antonenko’s understudy with just five minutes’ notice — after throwing a cape over his street clothes — to sing the fourth and final act of the
performance because the star began to lose his voice on the Lincoln Center stage.
Anile ran to the edge of stage right, standing with a spotlight on him as he sang Otello’s lines while Antonenko mouthed the aria and acted out the scene.
Anile sang as Otello strangled his wife, Desdemona, during the pivotal 13-minute scene before the character stabs himself to death.
Anile wowed the audience with his performance, drawing a standing ovation.
He later told The Post that the surprise gig was “the crowning of a dream.”
Anile actually had time to dress in full costume for Thursday night’s show, his manager said.
“It shows that the theater is behind him,” the manager, Lewis Ehlers, said of Anile’s second call-up. “He was quite excited.”
“Having done the act the other day gave him a certain amount of calmness,” he added.
Ehlers said the “calmness” set in before Thursday night’s performance because “he now knew what it was like to sing on the stage.”
Anile, who is from the Reggio Calabria area of Italy, had said that he has played the role of Otello for more than 11 years all around the globe, so he wasn’t very nervous when he was called out of the green room last weekend with no time to spare.