A gala concert at the Waldbühne arena Tuesday featuring “dream couple” Anna Netrebko and Erwin Schrott with tenor Jonas Kaufmann ended up livelier than anyone expected. The soprano gave her German colleague a “love bite” that caused his lower lip to bleed. “I was just playing around,” she told the Berliner Morgenpost.

During the love scene of Manon she apparently leaned in and put some moves on Kaufmann that would have left most husbands fuming. But Schrott showed no signs of upset, blotting his colleague’s lip and then holding up the bloody tissue for the audience to see before they launched into the trio from Verdi’s I Lombardi. The singers were accompanied by the Prague Philharmonic under Marco Armiliato before an audience of 18,000. The concert was broadcast internationally.

I read it via an email Musical America sent me. (Paid membership required to read it there.)