Another Star Is Born? On Opening Night, L.A. Opera Understudy Goes On At Last Minute

Curtain time was 12 minutes away when soprano Elisabete Matos, set to sing Senta in the company’s new staging of Wagner’s Flying Dutchman, realized that she was developing a chest cold and, as conductor James Conlon put it, “was not breathing the way she needed to sing.” Enter the heroine …