'The show must go on': understudy steps into The Pearlfishers midway

Backstage drama rivalled the onstage action at the Sydney Opera House when there was a change of singers mid-performance in one of the main roles. Understudy Jonathan Abernethy was thrown onstage on Tuesday night to finish the opera in the role of Nadir in Bizet’s The Pearlfishers after star Nikhil Navkal became too sick to continue.

The young tenor from New Zealand was wearing a costume cobbled together from other Opera Australia productions, but according to audience reports did an admirable job and was rewarded with a huge, appreciative roar. “It was very encouraging to have everyone in the theatre behind me,” he told Guardian Australia.

Abernethy was at a restaurant just 15 minutes walk from the Opera House with his partner and friends, “halfway through this beautiful lasagne … It was about 7.30pm by that stage and you can kind of relax because the show has started. There’s not much that can go wrong at that point.”

Except on this night, something did go wrong. Navkal fell sick and during the performance was evidently struggling with some of the singing.

Abernethy received the call and was put on standby by Lyndon Terracini, the artistic director of Opera Australia. He was backstage warming up when he received final confirmation Navkal would not perform the rest of the show. “People started rushing in saying: ‘We have to throw you in a costume and get you ready to go!’”

The former rower’s large frame and size 13 feet forced costumers to cast aside Navkal’s costume and raid the wardrobes of other productions. “They were just throwing clothes at me – throwing something on, pulling it off.”

Eventually he was left dressed in “half a costume from La Bohème and a little bit of The Barber of Seville”.

In the brief moments before going on stage, Abernethy was given a pep talk by director Michael Gow. They went over his movements, lines and music. He recalls thinking to himself: “This is actually happening right now. I was having dinner half an hour ago and now I’m on the side of the Sydney opera house stage.”

Abernethy said “with everything so crazy, it had a calming effect”. With the interval concluded audiences were informed of the change, and he simply walked on and jumped into the character as best he could. “The show must go on. It was fun.”

A common issue for understudies is, having spent so long watching rather than acting in the show, movements become “mirrored” in their mind. “You go to the left stage rather than right stage,” he said. Fortunately, Abernethy had been given an opportunity to train onstage in December during early production rehearsals.

Abernethy said there were only a few instances every year in which understudies were called on, and usually they were notified one night or a few hours before the show begins. To be called midway through a performance was highly unusual.

The audience was notified of the change at the beginning of the second act, which began only a few minutes late.

An Opera Australia spokeswoman has confirmed Abernethy will perform the next performance of The Pearlfishers on Saturday.

• The Pearlfishers is at the Joan Sutherland Theatre at the Sydney Opera House until 12 March. Jonathan Abernethy is performing at The Heart at Sea at the Glebe Justice Centre on 19 March and Mozart Requiem with the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs at the Sydney Opera House on 26 March