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For Soprano, From ‘Butterfly’ to ‘Bohème,’ in a Flash

Kristine Opolais prepares to perform in “La Bohème” on Saturday, after singing the title role in “Madama Butterfly” on Friday.Credit...Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

Last-minute cast changes at opera houses are always full of drama, but the one that took place in Saturday afternoon’s performance of Puccini’s “La Bohème” at the Metropolitan Opera promises to go down in the annals of day-of-the-performance substitutions.

The rising soprano Kristine Opolais, who had just sung the title role of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” for the first time at the Met on Friday night, was awakened at 7:30 a.m. Saturday with a phone call from Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, who made a bold request: Could she possibly sing the role of Mimi that afternoon in the matinee of “La Bohème,” to replace an ailing Anita Hartig?

“It was crazy,” said Ms. Opolais, who added that she had not fallen asleep until around until 5 a.m. after all the excitement of her “Butterfly” performance. “I said, ‘No, no, no — it’s impossible. I would love to do that, but it’s impossible.’ But then something happened, and after 5 minutes I said, ‘Why not?’ ”

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Ms. Opolais and Vittorio Grigolo in the Metropolitan Opera's broadcast of Puccini's “La Bohème” on Saturday.Credit...Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera .

The stakes are always high at the Met, with its 3,800 seats, but Ms. Opolais’s last-minute switch into a role she had not rehearsed on stage would play out before a much wider audience. The performance, broadcast on the radio and transmitted live to movie theaters around the world as part of the Met’s “Live in HD” series, was expected to reach more than 300,000 people.

Ms. Opolais, who said that she would normally be resting her voice after a night singing “Butterfly,” found herself singing her second Puccini opera, and playing out her second Puccini death scene, on the stage of the Met within the space of 18 hours. While she had sung the role of Mimi at the Vienna State Opera and elsewhere, she had never done it at the Met.

Generally, there are few things operagoers dread more than getting a slip of paper in their programs announcing unplanned cast changes, but this year the Met has managed to make some of those occasions memorable. Last month, when the baritone Thomas Hampson, citing illness, had to miss the opening night of Berg’s “Wozzeck,” the Met replaced him with Matthias Goerne, who had just sung the role at Carnegie Hall with the Vienna State Opera.

Ms. Opolais said Saturday after the performance that her streak would have to end. The Met’s Saturday evening performance was of Giordano’s “Andrea Chénier.”

“I was joking to Peter Gelb that in case something happens, I don’t know this role,” Ms. Opolais said. “Not yet.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 23 of the New York edition with the headline: For Soprano, From ‘Butterfly’ to ‘Bohème,’ in a Flash. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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