Word: astrid
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...little after 7 p.m. when the phone rang. The voice on the other end was breathless: Could Miss Varnay get down to the Metropolitan Opera House at once? Helen Traubel was ill and the Met had to have a new Isolde right away. An hour later, Astrid Varnay, hastily bewigged and costumed, but with no spare time for even a few warm-up scales, was ready to go on stage...
...last week Astrid was enjoying something no singer ever gets too much of: bravos. Mexico City's new opera season had run into trouble. The visiting conductor was stewing about the hot trumpeters and nightclub fiddlers the musicians' union had sent him; a leading tenor was feuding with the conductor. Could the chaotic season be steadied by a singer whom Mexican operagoers especially liked? The Opera Nacional had persuaded Astrid to come down and try some popular Italian operas. As usual, Astrid, who had never sung an Italian role, was glad to help...
With her old self-confidence, she mastered four new Italian roles, broadened her acting ("You do things here New York would consider a little corny"), opened as Leonora in Il Trovatore. At the end of her big first act aria, the audience went wild. Next day, Astrid found herself the talk of the town...
...opera season gets off to a fortissimo start in San Francisco this week. The opening Lohengrin will star a new Swedish tenor named Set Svanholm and the Metropolitan Opera's Astrid Varnay. In the orchestra pit will be 47-year-old, parrot-nosed William Steinberg, a favorite conductor of the paladin of all conductors, Arturo Toscanini...
...Brussels. Last week the Swiss Government gave him permission to move into Switzerland, probably to his late father's chateau on Lake Lucerne. It was from there that he had set out ten years ago on the fatal motor tour which resulted in the death of Queen Astrid. Moodily, the King gave the order to pack the royal bags...