Music: Musical Chairs at the Met

Waiting in the wings for his entrance cue during a Metropolitan Opera performance of The Marriage oj Figaro last week, Tenor Charles Kullman (Don Basilic) suddenly realized that he was missing something: his voice. His vocal cords evidently affected by a lingering cold, Kullman rushed to the dressing room and started desperately croaking at Tenor Gabor Carelli, who was not scheduled to go on (in the role of Don Curzio) until the third act. Carelli looked up amiably from his newspaper. “Quit your kidding, Charlie,” he said. When Kullman finally got his message across. Carelli hastily switched costumes and rushed onstage to sing Don Basilio.

Watching the performance from the audience, Tenor Robert Nagy guessed what had happened, hurried backstage and climbed into Carelli’s discarded Don Curzio costume. After that, the performance went off without a hitch, despite the fact that Carelli had never sung Basilio at the Met (he had recorded it in Vienna). The audience failed to notice the switch, but Conductor Erich Leinsdorf was shaken. “You should have seen his face,” said Tenor Carelli afterward. “He nearly fell off his chair.”