Word: callases
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Prima Donna Maria Callas, past mistress of the grand operatic exit, did it again last week. After her closing performance in Bellini's Il Pirata, she stalked out of Milan's La Scala-for good, she said-and probably out of Italian opera as well. "I leave La...
Soprano Callas' exit looked to some operagoers like a retreat in her six-year-old war against Soprano Renata Tebaldi. Callas won the first battle in 1955, when her rival disappeared from La Scala; Tebaldi has not sung there since. But while Tebaldi began a brilliant new career at...
This season La Scala's new Artistic Director Francesco Siciliani began needling Ghiringhelli about pampering prima donnas. Even before Callas' celebrated walkout on a Rome audience including Italian President Gronchi last January (TIME, Jan. 13), Ghiringhelli pointedly skipped his ritual of meeting her at the airport with flowers...
La Scala began peace talks with Tebaldi this spring, hoped she would sing at a special performance this summer at the Brussels World's Fair. Last week her fans were still throwing radishes at Callas, and so were some critics. "[Maria Callas'] well-organized claque," said Milan'...
But even before Callas quit, Tebaldi made a surprising maneuver: she announced that she would not sing at La Scala without Callas. "I sing only for artistic reasons; it is not my custom to sing against anybody," she said. Groaned Manager Ghiringhelli: "This is a stab in the back." To...