I learned about the importance of stage safety from years of sometimes hard experiences. Around 1974, in the Met’s Romeo and Juliet, I was doing my staged “dying” as Mercutio, while watching a thrilling, realistic fight with saber and dagger between Charley Anthony and Franco Corelli out of the corner of my eye. Suddenly something slipped and the blade came down taking a big hack out of Charley’s hand. What happened was that they got carried away. The intention is always to make it look real so you rehearse in slow motion to automatically parry the right way. In this case, everything was done right, but due to stage intensity getting out of hand, there was a miscalculation as to where the blades would meet. Charley wore a big bandage for a long, long time after that.
Another incident happened during a Faust performance in Duluth, Minnesota with my friend Michele Molese. Mike was a wonderful tenor at NYCO for many years, but sword fights scared him. He couldn’t stand the idea of hurting someone. Every time he would start to do a thrust, he would turn his head and hide his eyes! When he thrust his sword in the performance, I felt this cold blade next to my skin. There was no pain so I sang my farewell aria and “died.” In the dressing room, I found two holes in my shirt where the blade went in and out. I said, “Hey, Mike let me show you what you did!” Needless to say, we practiced the fight scene over and over—with his eyes open!
Sometimes, colleagues are not so understanding about safe practices, but you have to learn to ignore their outbursts and protect yourself. During a Pagliacci at SFO, I noticed that the tenor was a loose cannon; a very intense actor. When it came time for Silvio (me) to run up on stage to be stabbed, the tenor didn’t have a prop knife in rehearsal so he picked up a pencil. Knowing his intense working style, I asked him to turn the pencil so the eraser was the point. He became defensive and said, “Why is that?” I said, “Because that point scares me.” “Dom, that offends me. Are you intimating that I don’t know what I’m doing, that I lack control?” He started to make a big stink about it. I decided it wasn’t worth it and we played the scene his way. And of course, he did get carried away and stabbed me with the pencil point. I had to go to the emergency room and to this day, I have a piece of lead in my belly. Despite all that, at the dress rehearsal, the tenor took out a huge knife he’d picked up in Mexico. I saw that blade and went directly to Mr. Adler and reminded him of the pencil incident and said, “I assure you I shall not go up to be stabbed if he walks onstage with that blade.” Adler said, “Do not worry about it.” They forced the tenor to have a dinky rubber knife. He screamed and accused me of ruining his entire portrayal, but the pencil incident had taught me an important lesson.
