Word: karajans
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...curtain time last week, Italian opera fans had promised to fill the theater and boo Von Karajan right off the podium. Tenor Gianni Raimondi, who was hired to sing the role, was getting threatening phone calls for betraying his countryman. Said Di Stefano: "I'm seriously thinking of going to live in Katanga, where they are more civilized...
...Italy's beloved tenor Giuseppi Di Stefano showed up at La Scala to rehearse Rodolfo in a new production of La Boheme under Austria's Herbert von Kara Jan. he was stopped by La Scala's tearful manager. "Oh, dear Di Stefano," said the manager, "Von Karajan doesn't want you because you sing the Che gelida manina a halftone down...
SACKED BY VON KARAJAN. Cried the headlines, and Di Stefano announced he would sue La Scala and Von Karajan for defamation of character. Von Karajan denied he knew Di Stefano had even been signed to sing with him, and when La Scala paid Di Stefano his regular $10,000 fee despite the fact that he was not going to perform. Giuseppi simmered down. But not his friends. "Don't let yourself be insulted by a foreigner," they cautioned him. Quickly working himself back into a proper Sicilian rage, Di Stefano turned his $10,000 over to the Italian Opera...
...Scala debut (". . . the finest since Toscanini, icy told me . . .") and his debut at Bayreuth the Teutonic holy of holies. I was the first American and the young est man ever to appear there," Maazel says, and it was beautiful." Soon he was second only to Herbert von Karajan as Europe's darling. And having triumphed over adolescence in Europe, he was eager to triumph over his painful memories of home. It's great to be a prophet in your own country," he mused, "especially when you're already a prophet overseas...
Since he took over the Berlin Philharmonic, Von Karajan has hired ten new first deskmen, has replaced 17 other instrumentalists. Under his direction, the orchestra has played less of the German classical repertory to devote more time to the moderns. The result, even the old hands admit, is worthy of the best of the Berlin Philharmonic's hallowed tradition...