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The big opera aficionado event of the season, hell, pretty much of the decade, was scheduled for May 3, when. 75-year-old tenor Carlo Bergonzi planned to celebrate the golden anniversary of his operatic debut with his first-ever performance of Verdi�s Otello.

Everyone, I mean everyone was in attendance at Carnegie Hall for Opera Orchestra of New York�s concert performance led by Eve Queler. The Three Tenors were there. Anna Moffo. Sherrill Milnes. Franco Corelli. Marilyn Horne. Aprile Millo. Tony Randall. Celeste Holm. Oh, just everybody. And then the big moment came, the legend ambled out onto the stage for the trumpet-like "Esultate!" And the voice was weak, quavery, scratchy � the sound of an old, old man.

In his second appearance, the more lyrical duet "Già nella notte densa," Bergonzi floated several golden-age phrases with sweetness and generosity. But there was no escaping the realization that something was very wrong: Line after line Bergonzi rushed, grabbing extra breaths. He even resorted to that notorious singer-on-the-skids mannerism of cupping the hand over the ear in a vain attempt to get the higher notes in tune.

By the beginning of the second act, we could guess Bergonzi was not going to last the course. He tried marking a phrase or two in an apparent attempt to save his voice for the big moments, but, alas, there was no voice there to save. He limped through the Vengeance Duet closing the act, took one stiff bow, and disappeared backstage. Over 40 minutes later, an anonymous figure crept onto the stage and murmured something mostly inaudible � but we didn�t need to hear her words: It was painfully clear that Bergonzi was going to cancel the rest of the performance because of ill health.

What happened then? Well, for the record, Antonio Barasorda finished the role of Otello with a sturdy but ordinary voice. Kallen Esperian brought a warm and heartfelt vocal quality to the role of Desdemona, and debuting baritone Alberto Gazale (student of Sig. Bergonzi) unfurled a sweet and even lyric baritone, a size too small for Iago but full of promise. Eve Queler let the third act ensemble wander off in a dozen different directions, but otherwise followed her singers sensitively.

Oh, the Monday morning quarterbacking about this performance! Bergonzi was blasted in print and on the internet alternately as a cynical cheat trying to swindle infatuated fans out of a buck and as a senile wreck cruelly exploited by sycophants. The only point on which everyone seemed to agree was that the old man was voiceless, finished.

But everyone was wrong. Only two days later, Bergonzi showed up healthy and spry for a master class, demonstrating in full voice sections of some of the most difficult arias in the repertoire. He explained, looking a little embarrassed, that he suffered an allergic reaction to the air conditioning in his Carnegie Hall dressing room, and expressed regret that his one and only Otello should have turned out so disappointingly.

But, since this is opera, the story has to end with a melodramatic twist. An Italian opera fan named Marco Daverio somehow got hold of a bootlegged tape of the dress rehearsal of Otello, before Bergonzi's allergies kicked in. Portions of that tape now can be heard on the internet, and Bergonzi's voice sounds rich and fresh. Yes, sometimes he goes flat on top -- but he's done that for over two decades now. It really sounds as if he could have sung Otello on the night, and beautifully in the bargain. As for me, I'm just grateful Maestro Bergonzi was willing to take the chance.

Taking chances is what La Gran Scena is all about. The scrappy little all-male opera company seems forever on the verge of financial disaster, and yet, somehow, the divas pull it all together for "just one more" New York season. At Town Hall on the rainy evening of May 13, something close to a thousand opera queens and opera queen wannabees cheered and bravaed Mme. Vera Galupe-Borszkh and her troupe through three hours of operatic sendup, with only an occasional dull spot of leaden comic dialogue providing a chance to come up for air.

The generous program climaxed with the company's familiar "Poker Scene" from La fanciulla del West, with Mme. Vera in full Rhinestone Cowgirl regalia. Her performance owed more than a little to the legendary Magda Olivero's famed repertoire of extra-musical vocal effects; Vera cackled, snarled, grunted, snorted, bellowed and shrieked in true verismo fashion. Particularly moving was her voluptuous vibrato when she intoned the name of her beloved highwayman "Dick."

The legendary diva's earlier number in this gala was newer but not quite so successful. As the sleepwalking Lady Macbeth, Vera mastered the intricacies of vocal color demanded by Verdi, up to and including the ghostly offstage fil di voce effect. But the prop-heavy humor did not always pay off. I did love, however, the fact that Vera's bedtime coiffure (hair rollers and net) echoed the silly wig Sir Peter Hall gave Renata Scotto to wear in the Met's ill-fated production of Macbeth two decades ago.

It was good to welcome back Johnny Maldonado to the company as beloved retired contralto Miss Helen Back, who joined equally superannuated soprano Gabriella Tonnoziti-Casseruola (Keith Jurosko) for an "original instrument" rendition of a duet from Hansel and Gretel. Maldonado doubled as tempestuous mezzo-soprano Carmelita della Vacca-Browne in an Aida Judgement Scene Fiorenza Cossotto herself might find over-the-top. Matching Carmelita lurch for lurch and high note for high note was the self-adoring tenor Alfredo Costa-Plenti, sung with burnished bronze tones and wicked bedroom eyes by Conrad Ekkens.

The "difficult" youngish soprano Kavatina Turner (Kyle Church Cheseborough) returned for her classic capsule version of Handel's Semele, joined by the strong-voiced and cuddly-looking countertenor Rodney Ballfree (Daniel Rawe), whose sendup of David Daniels et al. gets funnier on each new viewing. James Heatherly of When Pigs Fly fame was the new Sylvia Bills, hostessing with the ineffable sweetness of Billie Burke on quaaludes.

La Gran Scena remains both the funniest and most touching of all opera companies; that laughter is a reflection of the sincerest sort of love for a sometimes infuriating but always fascinating art.

James Jorden