Encores Come to the Met

NEW YORK " It was a night for the history books.

Juan Diego Florez jauntily cherry-picked the nine high C's in "La Fille du Regiment" at the Metropolitan Opera April 21. These were the same stratospheric nine that signaled the 1972 breakthrough of some tenor named Pavarotti. And the aria sent a special shiver of approval through the primed opening-night crowd.

Then something happened that was rare and thrilling " and more than a little scary to those of us who habituate the Broadway circuit down the block.

Applause at the Met was so loud and prolonged that the opera stopped so Florez could sing the whole aria again. Nine high C's? Big deal. We lucky thousands were there to hear a single pair of unamplified vocal cords ping out 18 of these outlandishly pleasurable, head-tingling sounds.

Were that not enough, the audience then rose for a standing ovation " a virtually unprecedented occurrence in the middle of an opera.

After a while, when we finally stopped congratulating the dashing Spanish tenor and ourselves for having been there, Donizetti's comic opera resumed.

So why am I worried about Broadway? The next day, it was revealed that the encore was no one-shot eruption. It seems Peter Gelb, the tradition-shaking general manager of the Met, had invited Florez to repeat the aria, if he thought it appropriate, as he already had in several European opera houses " including La Scala, which had enforced an encore ban since the 1930s.

More, Gelb declared an end to the rule against mid-performance encores that, for most of a century, had ruled decorum at the Met.

According to the staff of the Met archives, the words "positively no encores allowed" first appeared in programs in 1924, though "an implicit ban" was in effect even earlier. Singers used to stop everything to repeat their greatest hits in the 19th century. Except for a Pavarotti encore in a 1994 "Tosca," the solo repetition has long been considered a tasteless indulgence and destructive to the idea of opera as musical theater.

Despite Gelb's devotion to modern theatricality, he now says that if the "public wants" an encore, let it rip. Opera should be "as entertaining and exciting for the audience as it can be." Certainly, those 18 high C's were exciting. I'm delighted I was there for the special occasion. In lifting official prohibitions and traditional restraints, however, hasn't the Met let a monster out of the bottle? Imagine, if you can stand it, that the Broadway public is encouraged to want what it wants.

Standing ovations used to signal the exceptional in the theater.

Now they are ho-hum, all but required at the end of every play and musical. How long will it be before fans learn that their opera counterparts have permission to jump to their feet in gratitude after the big numbers " no matter what drama gets stomped in the ritual? Picture this. If you love the way Patti LuPone delivers "Rose's Turn" in "Gypsy," why not scream and shout until she relents, bows, cues the band and does the whole thing over again? Do you wish Kelli O'Hara would wash that man right out of her hair another time for your pleasure in "South Pacific"? Just yell "Encore!" to press the audience's pause button on World War II in time for her to shampoo twice.

Less likely, but not impossible, is the chance to appreciate Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene one more time before everybody dies. To be or not to be? Ask loud enough and Hamlet just might ask all over again.

Think of the missed trains home, the car services idling outside the theaters, the unions demanding overtime. How will anyone know when shows will end? Will they ever end? If tonight's audience gets a star to repeat the star turn, won't tomorrow's theatergoers feel cheated if they just get a fine performance? Without the encores, does it mean that the other guy saw a better show? Florez did not do his encore at the performance broadcast last weekend on international radio and fed in high-definition to movie theaters around the country. Can you blame anyone who feels cheated, suddenly, by nine measly high C's? High-wire exceptions can be unforgettable, but theater is not a circus.

As much as I cherish that night at the opera, I keep thinking about Velma's vaudeville routine in the stage version of "Chicago" " the moment when she finishes her cartwheels, looks out into the audience and gestures for us to beg her to do them again.

Encores are so ritualized at classical recitals and rock concerts that repetitions are part of the program. But Elvis Presley, who never did encores, had announcers tell fans, "Elvis has left the building." Leaving them wanting more is theater, too.