Understudy aids opera lip-sync

Lip-syncing has come to the opera.

English National Opera singer Clive Bayley was midway through the first act of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” when he started losing his voice.

Searching for a stand-in, the show’s directors grabbed understudy Paul Whelan from his seat in the audience.

He had no time to change into costume and hadn’t rehearsed the part onstage. Instead, he sang from the side of the stage while Bayley mouthed the words of the tutor, Raimondo, during Saturday’s performance in London.