Word: primae
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Third group which followed Bronson Cutting to his grave were the liberals of Congress. When he joined them seven years ago, an unassuming young bachelor from New Mexico, he did not seem a promising member of a group which is traditionally composed of the prima donnas of politics. He was neither fire-eater nor spellbinder, but to the liberals he became something more useful. In his quiet way he cemented the bonds between them, often persuaded them to hang together instead of flying off in a dozen individual directions. When the news of Bronson Cutting's death was brought...
...Boston, toured with a brass band until she could afford to study opera in Italy. Like Lilli Lehmann, she began with light florid roles, won great success. But her ambition soared higher. She went to Bayreuth, worked with Wagner's widow, became a finished Wagnerian. As a prima donna at the Metropolitan Opera she conducted herself royally. For her audiences she had unfailing charm; for herself, rich furs and jewels, a private car which she named ''Brünnhilde...
...love with him at first sight." As Premier of Prussia he controls the State Theatre for which she acted. "I decide whether a player is Jewish or not!" he has boasted. Deciding he loved Emmy, Premier Göring created for her the title "State Actress," equivalent to prima donna assoluta...
...first Brünnhilde was not easy to find, for most prima donnas impressed Wagner as being "silly, fastidious schoolgirls." He finally chose Amalie Materna, a big-chested Styrian with a grand manner and a zooming voice. At that first Bayreuth Festival in 1876 one of the Rhine maidens was a pretty young Jewess named Lilli Lehmann. Wagner wanted to adopt her but her mother, who knew the master well, objected. Lehmann was a light coloratura then and no one, least of all Wagner, suspected that she was soon to cultivate dramatic rôles and sing Brünnhilde...
...prima donnas have superstitions and Lotte Lehmann is no exception. In her dressing-room she keeps photographs of "mein Vater, meine Mutter, mein Mann und mein Bruder Fritz." She kisses them all and takes a nip of sherry before she goes on stage. For the rest her entourage consists of three stuffed animals: a brown plush dog, a fluffy white cat which holds a lorgnette, a horrid-looking dachshund made of sea shells. Her enthusiasms in the U. S. are for Greta Garbo's cinemas and "the rubberneck busses" which go through San Francisco's Chinatown...