Soon he was being asked to sing all over the world in opera houses such as La Scala, Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera. His performances of Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet" by Charles Gounod at Covent Garden in 1994 made him a great international star. When he sang that role on 15 December 2007 at the Metropolitan Opera with Anna Netrebko as Juliet the performance was broadcast by the Met into 447 theaters worldwide in high definition and seen by about 97,000 people.