Well, of course, he didn’t because she stabbed him first, and then forgot to read the small print on the safe-conduct papers; but that’s another story. Meanwhile at the Met…

Is there a great bass-baritone in the house? This desperate cry was answered with a resounding yes at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on Saturday, said The Times.

The Met’s managers were tearing their hair out trying to find a late replacement for an ailing James Morris, who was due to sing Scarpia in Tosca that evening. Then someone saw Bryn Terfel quietly sitting in the audience for a matinee performance of Wozzeck. Terfel is in New York to play Wotan in the Met’s new production of Die Walküre, which opens on Friday.

A whispered message was passed to the Welshman during a scene- change. He rushed back to his apartment with a score of Tosca, brushed up on a role that he had sung earlier this season, and burst on stage as Puccini’s malevolent sadist a few hours later.

Photo: Bryn as Baron Scarpia in Tosca, ROH June 2006 by Brian Tarr