Word: astride
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...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...
...Belgians still blame the King for his 1940 surrender, but many blame him for not encouraging resistance. Still others resent his second marriage after the death (in a car he was driving) of popular, Swedish-born Queen Astrid. To all these Belgians, a regency for Astrid's handsome son, Prince Baudouin, 14, looked good. The next few weeks would tell whether the stewardship of the Government in Exile looked equally good...
That happened a fortnight ago. Last week an even bigger part fell vacant -Die Walküre's Brünnhilde. Helen Traubel, herself pinch-hitting for Kirsten Flagstad (immured in Norway for the duration), took cold. Astrid Varnay found herself dressed up again ; this time in a red wig, a hand-me-down cuirass and tunic of one of the Valkyrie maids, a man's heavy helmet. Again the debutasters were amazed...
Soprano Flagstad was partly responsible. Years ago, when she sang an audition in Oslo, a baby cried in the next room. It was Astrid Varnay. Flagstad made friends with the elder Varnays, a coloratura soprano and a stage director at the Stockholm Royal Opera. Soon the Varnays moved to the U.S. When Flagstad followed, she learned that Astrid had a voice and sent her to her own teacher, Hermann Weigert...