And petulance at La Scala!

No tempest in a teacup, this. Tenor Roberto Alagna, singing Radames on Sunday night (December 9) just couldn't stomach the boos coming from the tough loggionisti (balcony spectators) at La Scala and stomped off the stage, leaving his leading lady to struggle through the duet by herself.

Everyone's talking about it. Even people who don't care for opera have heard about it. It seems that the diva tantrums of yore really don't happen very much these days (oh, wait, of course, there WAS Kathleen Battle) - so that this big tenor hissy fit made news all over the world.

I found a blog of an opera lover in Milan who gives all the dirt, and then some (!) on this incident and its continuing fallout. Read Opera Chic for some good old-fashioned opera-drama-behind-the-scenes!

I really love what one opera critic said on the BBC. When asked why Alagna would jeopardize his career by stomping of the stage of THE temple of opera, the critic said, "well, tenors are notoriously fragile creatures."

Gillian Coldsnow