Another riot out of Clichy-sous-Bois.*

EXIT STAGE LEFT, PURSUED BY A CHORUS
OF EXCITABLE HEALTH AND SAFETY LAWYERS
The Fallout From An Angry Tenor's Walkout
During A Performance At La Scala Has Turned
Into A Legal Nightmare At The Opera

December 15, 2006 (Guardian) - Act one is priceless. The tenor, Roberto Alagna, storms off the La Scala stage on Sunday night after singing Celeste Aida. He has produced what a critic called "a rather laboured B flat", and the gallery has erupted in boos. His partner, the mezzo-soprano Ildiko Komlosi, has to warble, "Such unwonted joy in your glance!" at his retreating back.

... Act two is better. We now have an angry, pampered and overpaid tenor in search of a lawyer. ... La Scala's team want to sack Alagna and sue for breach of contract. Alagna countersues since he was contracted to sing "in a theatre, not an arena", a claim weakened by the fact that his costume appears to be by Armani out of Gladiator. ... He attacks La Scala for failing to protect him from his audience. He points out that while the audience was hurling only insults, "What if they had thrown stones at me or some crazy person had attacked me? After all, John Lennon ended up being killed." ... He also protests that he left the stage not because of the abuse but because "the public did not defend me from those making the fuss". This suggests a brand-new tort, of an audience failing to remonstrate physically with those booing a poor performance.

Yes, best hang the audience. Racaille. The whole lot of them. What do you expect when any yob with as little as €220+ (USD $290) can grab a seat in the rafters and boo the great?

WHO'S THE CLOWN?
The Job Made Him Sick
Roberto Alagna As Canio in Pagliacci

OUSTED TENOR BLAMES LOW BLOOD SUGAR

December 15, 2006 (Forbes/AP) - Alagna became the first singer in memory to leave La Scala's stage during a performance. Video footage shows him giving the audience a fisted salute and walking off Sunday night amid a chorus of boos following the opening aria, "Celeste Aida."

... "I was fine when I started, but this problem with my metabolism, if I am very emotional or stressed, my system consumes sugars very quickly," Alagna said by telephone from the airport in Milan on Friday. "After that happened to me, the sugars went down dramatically. I couldn't stay on my feet, I had to sit. I didn't have the strength."

... A spokesman for the opera house said Alagna never mentioned feeling unwell after leaving the stage and hasn't turned over any medical certificate to La Scala management.

"If a singer is sick, he goes off stage, tells the musical director and a doctor verifies the condition, we inform the audience and the understudy goes on stage," said Carlo Maria Cella.

BOOED TENOR GIVES
IMPROMPTU LA SCALA SHOW — OUTSIDE

December 15, 2006 (CBC) - Alagna, holding a rose, delivered a few notes from Madama Butterfly in the piazza outside the famous opera house and waved to onlookers. Inside, Aida was beginning its fourth act.

Well, opera is for prima donnas and France is where you find them. Attention! Attention! You've paid for your ticket, now pay attention! Gaze upon the center of the universe! The Guardian recalls:

I remember a Madame Butterfly in Paris where the entire production team assembled on stage at the end of act one and told the audience they were going on strike against the director, the management, American imperialism and global capitalism, and the strike would last the length of the first interval - to roars of happy applause from the audience.

* Birthplace of M. Alagna.

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