Opera Singer Michael Fabiano Sang on Stage Despite Head Wound

Opera singer Michael Fabiano was given only seven hours to prepare for the role of Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor at New York's prestigious Metropolitan Opera House when a cast member fell sick. All he had left was the finale before a standing ovation, but thhen disaster struck as he exited the stage.

"I ran off stage and ran into a dark area and hit my head into a light, and really hit the deck," Fabiano told The Telegraph.

He had a gash on his head and blood poured as medical staff tried to patch him up in the 10 minutes before his climactic final scene.

"But I said I had to focus," said Mr Fabiano. "I had to get ready. I had to think about the last scene, which again I hadn't done for a year and a half. I needed to take two minutes to think about it."

However he managed to finish the show, winning plaudits from the audience and stunned reviews from critics who could barely believe that only seven hours earlier Fabiano had been photocopying documents at a shop in Philadelphia as he prepared his tax return.

These positive reviews confirm Fabiano's reputation as one of the coming names in operam, and as the tenor for a crisis. Last year he performed Rudolfo in La Boheme with a week's notice and The New York Observer described his performance as the "debut of the decade".

Fabiano is set to open the Glyndebourne Festival in the title role of another Donizetti opera, Poliuto.

In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, he explains that he had been running errands last Wednesday when his manager called to see whether he could perform at the Met/

"I asked when. And he said now, today," said Fabiano. "I said, OK, I need a few minutes. I had to run back to my house to check that I could really, pull the score out of my brain. I hadn't done it for a year and a half."

He made the decision to perform and he took the train to New York, giving him an hour and a half to run through the score.

"Once I got to The Met, I didn't have time to study. That was it, I had to do costume, shove food down my throat, meet the conductor, put the costume on, go on stage that's really what it was," he said. "I love those kinds of moments. Those big challenges. They give me a good impetus."

For Fabiano, the most important thing was to nail the score.

"If it's so much of a last minute job, there's no way I can realise the production itself to its full capacity, but I can realise the score," he said. "That's the difference. And ultimately people are coming to listen to singing."

Now that he rescued the performance, he can switch his attention back to Glyndebourne.

Fabiano said: "For me it's not just about knowing the words and knowing the notes, the flow, it's having the memory in my throat and in my body of the whole score."

Read the original article here.

Photo Credit: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

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