Word: binging
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Flute, due for a Metropolitan Opera performance in early 1951. Like other neophytes at the Met, she spent the rest of her time attending classes in the Met's affiliated Kathryn Turney Long Opera Courses, watching rehearsals, singing once in a while in rehearsal ensembles-until Manager Rudolf Bing tapped her on the shoulder last week, five hours before the curtain went up on the season's first Don Giovanni...
Soprano Nadine Conner, scheduled to sing the role of Countrymaid Zerlina, had folded with food poisoning. Bing had to find a substitute fast. Roberta had memorized the role and, at 5 ft. 2 in., was a neat fit in Conner's costume. After an afternoon of cramming sessions with Stage Director Herbert Graf, Assistant Manager Max Rudolf and some final tips just an hour before curtain time from Conductor Fritz Reiner, Roberta was waved onstage. She turned out to be just about the only bright light in an otherwise lusterless performance...
...tense inside," Roberta told a circle of congratulators after the final curtain. Said grateful Rudi Bing: "You were very nice. Now hurry home and get a good night's sleep...
...second opera was also a completely rebuilt production: Wagner's romantic The Flying Dutchman, which had not been staged at the Met in ten years. As he had for Verdi's Don Carlo, Bing went to Broadway for his designer, commissioned new sets sketched by Robert Edmond (The Iceman Cometh) Jones. Conductor Fritz Reiner polished cast and orchestra until they shone. If The Dutchman was less of a triumph than Don Carlo, it was mainly because Wagner had given the Met less of a grand opera to work with than Verdi...
...unbudgeted item of last-minute expense: in a gesture of good fellowship and good showmanship, Bing ordered 100 cups of afternoon coffee served to a sidewalk queue that had lined up for standing-room tickets...