Domingo's hat-trick celebration

Placido Domingo celebrated 30 years of performances at the Royal Opera House by singing to three different audiences at the same time.

One paying audience was inside to hear him perform the part of Gherman, the doomed lovelorn gambler, in Tchaikovsky s The Queen of Spades.

The other two watched him for free on big screens in Covent Garden piazza and, for the first time, in Canada Square, Canary Wharf.

All three audiences, totalling more than 5,000 opera fans, gave him tumultuous receptions which he acknowledged when he stepped out with the rest of the cast on to the stage in the piazza.

He said: "In my broken English I want to say that the public inside and outside have been extraordinary. I know this performance was shown in Canary Wharf and I hope that future performances will be shown in many parts of the country."

A great believer in the big-screen showings, Domingo gave the first in the piazza 15 years ago. It was of La Boheme and on stage with him then as last night was British baritone Thomas Allen.

That reunion was just one of many causes for celebration. Another was the Covent Garden debut of British soprano Susan Chilcott as Gherman's love Liza. The Queen of Spades is also the first opera that Domingo has sung in the new Royal Opera House.

"I am very thrilled to have been singing for 30 years in this company," he said. "It means so much. It's like a great family."