Russell Thomas continues his thrilling sweep of the world’s top opera houses in the great tenor roles of Verdi. In Paris, his assignment is Don Alvaro, descended from Inca royalty and thus, to the racist Spanish aristocracy of the drama, a virtual untouchable. Yet he has won the heart of Donna Leonora of Calatrava, who in the back story has consented to elope. The curtain rises, and she dithers, her father intervenes, and Alvaro—too honorable for this world—throws down his pistol, which fires accidentally as it strikes the ground. Dad dies, cursing his daughter, and it’s downhill from there (not until the final scene are the lovers reunited). But what gorgeous music! The Russian box-office sensation Anna Netrebko, still black-listed at the Met and elsewhere for her refusal to denounce Putin’s war, sings Leonora through December 24. Then Anna Pirozzi steps in. —Matthew Gurewitsch