How Happily My Heart Breaks

I saw Placido Domingo as Cyrano de Bergerac recently. What a thrill. Not that I'm star-struck; I've seen too many stars and been struck by how little they measure up to the hype. But it really is something to see a true superstar perform. Someone like Domingo brings such presence and charisma to the stage, you feel it immediately. The excitement is there before he ever opens his mouth.

And that Sunday at the War Memorial Opera House, it was certainly there afterward. As the stage went dark, people began moving down the aisles. At first I thought they were planning to throw bouquets--a now frowned-upon sign of enthusiasm that I haven't seen in years. There were too many people for that, though, and they were all holding up cell-phone cameras, not long-stemmed roses. The rest of us were applauding and cheering, and Domingo really looked happy, not at all like someone who--after singing 134 different roles in nearly 3,500 performances, more than any other tenor ever--might understandably be a tad jaded. As the curtain fell, he leaned down and out to the side as if to get one more look at the audience. Even if it was to give the audience one more look at him, it was a sign of enthusiasm you rarely see in a star.

For myself, I was still trying to reel in the tears I shed during the last scene, when Cyrano comes to see Roxane for the last time, and he reads aloud the final letter sent her by, she thinks, her long-dead husband. We all know that Cyrano wrote that letter, and that he remembers every word. When the perennially unobservant Roxane wonders how he can read anything now that it's dark, we see the letter lying in his lap as he speaks. Oh, the heavenly sorrow of (someone else's) unrequited, obsessive love!

After Jon Carroll, my favorite Chronicle columnist, saw the opera, he wrote about viewing a play or an opera for the first time--in this case, Edmond Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac, on which the opera is based, with his daughter. Having learned from movies and TV that the hero never dies, she was emotionally walloped by the ending. His column reminded me of the time I was watching the final scenes of a classic opera that does not end well for the principles. (Not that that's a clue.) Noticing the tears streaming down my cheeks, the woman next to me leaned over and asked softly, "Is this your first Tosca?"

And yet, as with Madama Butterfly or La Boheme, I still cry at the end of Tosca. With Cyrano, play or opera, I think knowing how it ends--not just knowing that all the words that made Roxane fall in love are Cyrano's, and that he has nobly kept the truth from her all these years, and that even now he is disregarding a fatal head wound, just to see her one more time--well, it makes that last scene unutterably more poignant. You might call it sentimental, and hyper romantic, and you could be right; but you'd still believe if you saw someone like Placido Domingo in the role. I could cry just thinking about it.

Music: Scenes from San Francisco Opera's Cyrano de Bergerac

My Afternoon with Domingo

I met Placido Domingo a couple of days ago. Wait, let me rephrase that. A couple of days ago, I met Placido Domingo! He is in San Francisco to sing Cyrano de Bergerac, by the undervalued Italian composer Franco Alfano. (Why this 1936 opera is performed so infrequently is a post in itself.) After rehearsal one afternoon, San Francisco Opera had a little "press chat" with Domingo in the red-and-gold mezzanine lounge at the opera house. SFO general director David Gockley did a fine job of interviewing him, both sitting on high stools against a long wall, our plush chairs in a semicircle around them.

Gockley reminded us of the heroic role Domingo played at the 1983 gala opening night. He'd been in Manhattan that day, preparing to sing at the Met; but when SFO's Otello lost his voice, Domingo was asked to step in. I just learned some of these details. The man was recently arrived from Europe yet. A helicopter took him to SF billionaire composer Gordon Getty's Lear jet, which happened to be in New York; Domingo flew across the country; the audience heard reports of his journey up the freeway (in a green Jaguar with police escort); and the show went on, just a few hours late.

Gockley told us that, in the '70s and '80s, Domingo sang in San Francisco about once a year. His appearances became more sporadic after he became general director of the Washington Opera and, now, Los Angeles Opera. He last performed here at a special tribute evening about 10 years ago, during which he sang one act each from Fedora, Samson et Dalila, and most wonderfully, Otello, one of his signature roles.

This week, I had a chance to remind Domingo of something unforgettable he did that evening. As he was taking his bows, the singers, some SFO luminaries, and several backstage staffers gathered soundlessly behind him. He did an impressive double-take when he saw them. And then, when Domingo noticed his longtime dresser, a distinguished-looking older man named Joe Harris, he brought him forward and introduced him. Harris was stunned and touched, and so was I.

When I shared this memory, Domingo looked at me sadly and said, "He died," and he squeezed my hands. "I know," I said. "I thought of you when I read his obituary."

When Domingo was here last, he received a San Francisco Opera medal, awarded from time to time to great performers, conductors, and others who've been important to the company. When Harris, who died three years ago, retired in 2004 after 44 years with the opera, he was presented one, too.

Music: Placido Domingo sings "Nessun Dorma," from Turandot.