NEW YORK — For Luciano Pavarotti, it's over. For Salvatore Licitra, it's just beginning.

        On a night of high drama at the opera house, Pavarotti disappointed thousands of his fans by deciding at the last minute he was too ill with the flu to sing the closing performance of the Metropolitan Opera season. Licitra, a young Sicilian tenor, went on instead — and scored the most triumphant Met debut in recent memory.

        Licitra (pronounced li-CHEE-tra) sang the role of painter Mario Cavaradossi in Puccini's “Tosca” on Saturday, and with his bright, ringing sound and confident manner quickly won the affection of the 4,000 people who packed the house — as well as 3,000 more watching a live telecast on the Lincoln Center plaza outside. They showered him with extended applause and bravos after both his big arias and a 2 1/2-minute standing ovation at the end of the performance, bringing tears to his eyes.

        For Pavarotti, closeted in his apartment just a few blocks south of the opera house, the cancellation likely marked a mournful end to a glorious Met career that began with his appearance in Puccini's “La Boheme” in 1968 — the same year Licitra was born.

        At 66, after 373 Met performances of 20 roles, he is absent from the roster next season — and Met general manager Joseph Volpe made it clear he would not be returning in staged opera, though he might be invited back for a concert or recital. Nor does he have performances booked at any of the world's other opera houses.

        Pavarotti had kept the audience guessing until the very last minute, with no sign posted in the lobby as usually happens when a star cancels. When the house lights went down and the spotlight came up on stage, there were groans of dread.

        Stepping out from the curtain, Volpe related the events of the evening: A phone call from Pavarotti at 5:15 p.m. saying he would go on, but then another at 7:10 p.m. in which he said, “I'm sorry, my friend, I cannot sing.” The Met had even sent a vocal coach to help Pavarotti prepare. Volpe said later that the coach confirmed the singer was too congested to sing.

        Volpe said he had asked Pavarotti to come to the house to give his regrets in person to the audience, but the singer replied, “I cannot do that.”

        He said he then told Pavarotti, “This is a hell of a way to end this beautiful career of yours.”

        On Sunday, Pavarotti issued an “open letter” to his fans, saying he had been looking forward to the performances but that he could not go on once the flu virus robbed him of a “proper vocal condition.”

        “The media seems to imply that the New York opera public will not forgive my cancellation,” the letter said. “But forgiveness assumes that one has made a mistake; no matter how much I regret with a passion not being able to sing at the Met on this occasion, catching the flu was certainly not a willful mistake I made.”

        Licitra, who has performed the role of Cavaradossi in Europe, where he lives, had been flown over by the Met on the Concorde as a standby after Pavarotti canceled his first scheduled performance Wednesday. The understudy that night was journeyman tenor Francisco Casanova, and Volpe knew he'd have to do better to placate the closing-night gala audience, which paid nonrefundable ticket prices ranging from $75 to $1,875 — up from the usual $30 to $265.

        Comparisons are of course inevitable, and it would be far too soon based on one performance to proclaim Licitra an heir to Pavarotti's legacy. Still, he would appear to be a bright hope for opera lovers who have been searching desperately for tenors to fill the gap in the Italian repertory left by Pavarotti (and the retirement a few years hence of Placido Domingo, who is 61).

        Licitra, 33, shares with the young Pavarotti a tone whose quality is tightly focused and urgent — a sound produced under pressure that never seems stressed and that cuts easily through the orchestra. His high notes are clean and strong, though he lacks that unique “ping” in the voice that made Pavarotti's high notes so thrilling in their effortlessness.

        While Pavarotti started with a strong lyric voice and pushed it into more strenuous roles — with some loss of tonal beauty, many thought — Licitra has a bigger, deeper sound that might make him a true spinto tenor, a classification somewhere between lyric and heroic.

        Licitra does not cut a heroic figure on stage. He's short and on the stout side. Still, like Pavarotti, he has a disarming presence, a manner that exudes assurance the audience will love him. This became evident once he got through his first aria, “Recondita armonia,” and the big ovation made him sigh with relief.

        His third-act aria, “E lucevan le stelle,” was also beautifully sung, as was his final duet with the impassioned Tosca of soprano Maria Guleghina. Here was ardent, natural vocalism of a sort that has become increasingly rare on the world's opera stages.

        In the third major role of the opera, bass James Morris turned in a chilling portrayal of the sadistic Baron Scarpia. The whole evening came off remarkably smoothly, given the fact that Licitra had only a couple of hours of rehearsal and didn't meet conductor James Levine until just before curtain time.

        It may work to Licitra's advantage that the suddenness of his Met debut limited the advance hype. In recent seasons, excessive publicity set up unrealistic expectations for the debuts of Roberto Alagna and Jose Cura, to name just two good singers who have yet to show they are great.

        Licitra wasn't scheduled to sing in the house until 2004, also in “Tosca,” though the Met may now try to get him back sooner. His only previous New York appearance was at the Richard Tucker Music Foundation gala last fall, where he won glowing reviews.

        Until now, his chief notoriety stemmed from a high note he DIDN'T sing. In a production of Verdi's “Il Trovatore” at Milan's La Scala in 2000, conductor Riccardo Muti insisted Licitra omit the high C (unwritten by Verdi) that traditionally ends the aria “Di quella pira.” Licitra obliged and drew vociferous boos from an audience less interested in authenticity than visceral thrills. A recording of those performances was released in January by Sony.

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