MUSIClassical ALLEGRO
Topic: NEWS performers
Despite the firing of Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu a scant four days before opening night, not only did the show go on Monday at Lyric Opera of Chicago, the company's production of Puccini's "La boheme" actually managed to go on as if nothing had happened. As if the internationally acclaimed Gheorghiu had not skipped out on six of 10 rehearsals and jetted off to New York to be with her husband, tenor Roberto Alagna, who is singing Romeo in Gounod's "Romeo et Juliette'' at the Metropolitan Opera. As if her understudy, Cuban-American soprano Elaine Alvarez, [photo], who blossomed into a luminous performance on Monday, had been Lyric's choice for Puccini's doomed Mimi all along. 
