Whatever else Rolando Villazón might have done or not done for opera in filling the role of the big-haired tenor genius in Popstar to Operastar, he has this weekend achieved the kind of notoriety that no other opera star has ever managed: being immortalised as a knitted character on Harry Hill's TV Burp.
After being gently but firmly lampooned by the dome-headed master of Saturday evening's TV schedules (Hill took the mickey by comparing Villazón's impression of full-on operatic antics with The Muppet Show), came the unveiling of TV Burp's K Factor, a competition to find the greatest homemade knitted creation in the country. The Mexican tenor finds himself turned into a mop-haired, goggle-eyed woollen character who will be one of the K Factor's diminutive judges, and is thus assured an unshakable place in the pop-culture pantheon.
After his enjoyably vitriolic riposte to Rupert Christiansen's criticism of Popstar to Operastar ("I care so little about critics I had to write this article", was roughly the gist), and his game but doomed defence of the show on the BBC Breakfast show, Villazón has been given a more meaningful and lasting tribute than anything the Z-listers he's coaching could come up with. I want to see a duet between the opera star and his woollen doppelgänger before this series of TV Burp is finished.
