DiDonato Returns to Stage Following Broken Leg

Never mind Roger Federer and Andy Roddick, last weekend’s truly
impressive feat of endurance came courtesy of US opera singer Joyce
DiDonato, who completed her performance in the Barber of Seville at the Royal Opera House despite the inconvenience of a broken leg.

DiDonato, a highly rated mezzo-soprano, suffered the injury when she
slipped during the first act. Thinking it was just a sprain, she nobly
soldiered on with the aid of a walking stick and the helping hands of
her co-stars, before discovering after the end of the three hour show
that she had broken her fibia.

“Apparently this kind of injury requires absolutely no weight
to be put on to it, so I’m crossing my fingers that not too much damage
was done” DiDonato wrote on her blog, adding “from here on out, I
declare that no-one, please, ever, ever, ever, wish me again, in the
American fashion, to ‘break a leg’.”

She returned to the stage in a wheelchair last night (8 July) and will be present when the production is
screened to a small number of UK cinemas next week (15 July
2009).