Plácido Domingo, Charles Anthony, Dwayne Croft, Justino Díaz, Mirella Freni and Paul Plishka followed in the third act of Franco Zeffirelli's production of Otello.
Hermann Prey, Croft, Barbara Daniels, Andrij Dobriansky and Anne Sofie von Otter concluded the gala in a performance of an abridged version of the second act of Schenk's production of Die Fledermaus, deploying the theatre's revolving stage and incorporating eleven items sung by guests at Prince Orlofsky's party.
[1] Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) Rigoletto (Venice, 1851), with a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave (1810-1876), after Le roi s'amuse ("The king amuses himself", Paris, 1832) by Victor Hugo (1802–1885).
Act Three Johann Strauss II (1825-1899) Die Fledermaus ("The flittermouse", Vienna, 1874), with a libretto by Karl Haffner (1804-1876) and Richard Genée (1823-1895), after Le réveillon ("The supper party", Paris, 1872) by Henri Meilhac (1830-1897) and Ludovic Halévy (1839-1908), after Das Gefängnis ("The prison", Berlin, 1851) by Julius Roderich Benedix (1811-1873), and with dialogue by Paul Mills adapted from that written by Otto Schenk and translated by Marcel Prawy (1911-2003).
Featuring Hermann Prey as Gabriel von Eisenstein, a wealthy gentleman of leisure, Barbara Daniels as Rosalinde, Eisenstein's wife, Barbara Kilduff as Adele, Rosalinde's chambermaid, Grace Millo as Ida, Adele's sister, Anne Sofie von Otter as Prince Orlofsky, a wealthy Russian, Andrij Dobriansky as Ivan, Orlofsky's servant, Dwayne Croft as Dr Falke, a notary, and Gottfried Hornik as Frank, a prison governor.
The Met's first night at Lincoln Center, he recalled, had been an utter catastrophe, and the gala celebrating its silver anniversary in its second theatre had begun with disappointments just as discouraging as those of the première of Barber's Antony and Cleopatra in 1966.
An excerpt "drained of human characters, offering pasteboard roles and posing voices" was partly redeemed by the force and personality of Nicolai Ghiaurov as Sparafucile.
Conducting, James Levine "seemed to treat the music as a collection of fragments designed for glitter and response ... belting out exclamations with little thought for proportion and sense and drama".
Hermann Prey's "winsome" Eisenstein and Barbara Daniels's "brash" Rosalinde introduced "a party that became a triumphant homage to the powers of the voice", as the tradition of interpolating guest appearances into Orlofsky's festivity was honoured in "one of the most exquisitely refined and extravagant assemblages of vocal artistry" in the Met's entire 108-year history.
And Pavarotti and Domingo joined forces in a duet from La Bohème, "clowning with scarves, clasping shoulders and hands and showing a subtle but good-hearted rivalry in their singing and bows".
[2] All in all, despite its moments of strain and its lapses into vanity, the gala was "a grand-scale tribute to a great opera company", and one was left admiring the gifts of the evening's soloists and Levine's manifest affection for them.