Tenor Juan Diego Florez really delivered: his own baby boy in New York City and minutes later a host of high Cs to a worldwide audience of millions.
Florez helped two midwives in the birth of his son, Leandro Florez, at 12:25 p.m. Saturday. The tenor had stayed up all night with his wife, Julia, after she went into labor at their rented apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
Florez held his new son for a minute before rushing to the nearby Metropolitan Opera, where the 38-year-old Peruvian sang the tenor lead in Rossini's comic opera "Le Comte Ory" starting at 1 p.m. The show was broadcast across the world in movie theaters and the radio.
"It was beautiful," Florez said about the birth later in an interview during the broadcast. "It was a home birth with a pool, in the water, it was very nice and very calm."
Mother and baby were doing just fine, getting checkups at Manhattan's Roosevelt Hospital
"I didn't sleep all the night," Florez said, "but I'm so happy."