Richard Versalle was a fairly successful operatic tenor, known particularly for his performances of Wagner's music. Versalle, in truly fitting style of the opera, had a taste for the theatrical, and immediately seized upon the chance to do something bold whilst performing at the 1996 premiere of The Makropulos Case at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The performance required Versalle, playing Vitek, an elderly clerk, to ascend a 20ft high ladder, which is immediately a risky move, given that the 64-year-old was already having to concentrate on belting out the right notes without the added pressure of climbing high above the stage. Unfortunately, Versalle suffered a heart attack halfway into his climb, which also caused him to fall down onto the stage, merely minutes into the performance. What made it somewhat more awful and most definitely morbidly ironic was that Versalle had literally just finished singing the line "You can only live so long.". Ouch.
