What it means to be a professional...and an understudy...

December 16, 2006
Stepping in for a Star, but Not Feeling Like One

By DANIEL J. WAKIN
He’s the guy in black jeans.

That is, he is Antonello Palombi, the Italian tenor who found himself on the stage of Teatro Alla Scala in Milan in his civvies during a lavish production of Verdi’s “Aida.” Mr. Palombi was thrust into the role of Radames after the original tenor, Roberto Alagna, stalked off in a huff because of boos.

The startling moment last Sunday has stirred the opera world into a froth. And video of the incident has shot around the real world, on television news and YouTube, sending the little-known tenor into a not necessarily welcome limelight.

In a telephone interview from Milan, where he continues to cover the role and is preparing for two performances of his own, Mr. Palombi said he was grateful for the exposure but wished his Scala debut had been a little more, well, normal. At the same time, he said, he felt bad for Mr. Alagna, the French tenor who has said both that the boos upset him enough to prevent his singing and that he was bowing to the will of an audience that had spurned him.

“Yes, they’re talking about me in every corner of the world,” Mr. Palombi said. “But they’re not saying, ‘He sang like a god.’ They’re saying, ‘He saved a performance.’ ”

Mr. Palombi added that he did not feel like a hero. “I did my duty,” he said. “I’m happy it came out well. I’m happy the audience did not have to experience an affront by having the curtain fall.”

Most of all, Mr. Palombi said, he was proud that he had managed to keep his nerves under control. Imagine, he said, if he had failed to deliver, and the curtain fell. “I would have destroyed more than 10 years of my career,” he said.