A Singer’s Sense

Santley, the English baritone, was known not only for his experience and ability, but for something even more useful onstage: steady nerves and common sense.

That showed one night in 1865 while he was singing Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The theatre in London was packed, and in the last act a piece of gauze used for “clouds” caught fire from a gas jet behind the scenes. A stagehand ran out onto a narrow strip over the stage and cut the burning fabric loose. It dropped, blazing, onto the boards.

The audience saw flames and started to panic. Santley was already onstage. He walked calmly to the front and called out, in effect: “Don’t act like fools. It’s nothing.”

Then he picked up the interrupted song and carried on. The calm held. The panic stopped, and a disaster was avoided—because one singer kept his head.