La Cieca hears from a spy at the Met that tenor Roberto Aronica “after belching through the first part of the Butterfly orchestra rehearsal,” retreated to the company canteen where, the tenor complains, he received “an electrical shock from the espresso machine.” We are told that the singer is spending the night in a local hospital before departing for Italy tomorrow. Our spy describes the Met’s espresso machine as “bright, shiny and new,” adjectives he declines to apply to Mr. Aronica’s voice.  At the moment Aronica is still on the schedule for nine performances of Pinkerton beginning October 24.

In an unrelated backstage soupçon, an observer at the final dress rehearsal of Dr. Atomic observes that

the second act looks like one, long staged concert – there are huge stretches of time when the principles are stretched in a line across the front of the stage, the chorus/supers/dancers are in the three-storied cubicles, and absolutely NOTHING happens, stagewise – they all just stand/freeze there, singing . . . . I like a lot of the score, and it’s very singable, with great parts for the wife, an alto Indian woman, and especially the “Falling” section for lyric tenor, but I don’t know if it’s a stageworthy piece or not.