Word: divas
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...popular decision, if long in coming. Chapin had amply shown that he could run a smooth operation, and that it was possible to have aristocratic savoir-faire without resorting to the autocratic methods of former Met Manager Rudolf Bing. As many a diva has learned, Chapin's tact and graciousness do not signal a relaxed will. He pushed hard and successfully for the company's new Mini-Met, devoted to intimate or experimental operas in small halls with mostly young casts. To the Met staff's evident joy, he preserved and deepened the aura of good will...
Predictably, Italian critics did not spare their barbs at the once tempestuous diva. "A boring and costly family party" was how one described the first-night folderol. Critic Duilio Courir tartly suggested that I Vespri Siciliani, as one of Verdi's most complex works, was "surely not advisable for beginners...
...Stupenda really got on with it a few nights later as the star of opening night's new production of Bellini's bel canto classic Norma. Though Sutherland did not warm up until after her cruel Act I setpiece Casta Diva, she has rarely sung as passionately or been so actively involved in the dramatic proceedings. Under Tito Capobianco's ingenious direction, Sutherland clearly dramatized the two sides of Norma's often enigmatic personality-severe and stately as the imperious high priestess of the Druids, yielding, even frantic as a woman in love with, and ready...
...love all those loony old dames," Soprano Joan Sutherland once said of the delicately demented ladies she plays so often in 19th century operas. Despite Sutherland's mien of being constructed of equal parts dignity and marble, friends and colleagues have often hinted that the Australian diva has a healthy streak of lunacy herself. But it took a new production of Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment) at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera last week to prove that Sutherland can camp, shriek, mug and stomp about in boots delightfully without missing...
...this season-walked onstage at the Met opening to make a minor announcement and was greeted by a standing ovation from the audience. "I was quite amazed," Bing admitted. "They applauded me!" Then he went off to kiss Maria Callas. "Despite our differences," purred the diva, "he was a great manager...