Carl Reiner shows off opera skills on TV for first time

Veteran actor Carl Reiner realised his opera dreams on Thursday night (05Sep13) when he showed off his singing vocals on a U.S. TV talk show for the very first time. The Ocean’s Eleven star has harboured hopes of becoming an opera singer since he was a child, but ruled out a career in music because he lacks two key abilities for success.
During an interview on late night chat show Conan, he explained, “When I was a kid… I wanted to be an opera singer, and I had a voice. When I got older, I had a good octave range… I was missing two things to be an opera singer: pitch and timing. I went off key and I went off time so I never became one…”
Reiner revealed he had always shied away from taking the microphone to test his opera skills during previous TV appearances, but he was finally ready to try his hand at the art form at the age of 91.
He said, “On every (talk) show I’ve ever been on, from the very first one… they’ve always asked me what is the one thing you never did and I said, ‘I’d love to be an opera singer’ and they gave me an opportunity and I was frightened to do it. Tonight it doesn’t matter. I’m 91 and a half, I could fall on my a**, tonight I wanna do this.”
Reiner performed an impressive rendition of the aria from Italian opera Pagliacci, earning him huge applause from the audience and the show’s host, Conan O’Brien.