Word: scala
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Spring is the season when Amerlcan college opera companies pretend that they are the Metropolitan, La Scala, or Covent Garden. Often the results amount to just that-pretending. This year, however, campuses are positively blooming with new opera productions and new opera houses that New York, Milan and London could well be proud of. The architecture and stage facilities tend to be lavish, the repertory venturesome and the level of performances impressively high. In Connecticut next week, the University of Bridgeport will open a $5 million arts center with Neil Slater's Again, D.J., a rock-flavored updating...
...publishing firm in Indianapolis. And Bubbles? Bubbles did indeed become an opera star, and a smart one at that. She became, in fact, one of the biggest opera stars the U.S. has ever produced. She sang leading roles at the world's great opera houses, from La Scala to Covent Garden to San Francisco, commanded top fees of $10,000 for concert performances and made recordings that turned into classical bestsellers. She became a $300,000-a-year, one-woman industry and, at the same time, the finest singing actress since Maria Callas. And because...
...transformation did not happen quickly. Beverly was 37 years old when she broke through to international prominence in a 1966 production of Handel's Julius Caesar at the New York City Opera. She was 40 when she achieved La Scala. But, having bloomed late, she is at least blooming the way she does everything else?exuberantly. Her career surges ahead with ever growing momentum. Her itinerary looks like an airline route map, as she crisscrosses the globe to meet this year's schedule of more than 100 operatic, concert and recital appearances. To friends who urge her to slow down...
...breaking point, however. Once, at a rehearsal in Manhattan, a conductor reprimanded her: "Don't interrupt me when I'm speaking to somebody else." Beverly said: "I'll go you one better. I won't sing when you're conducting," and stomped offstage. During the preparations for her La Scala appearance, she climaxed an argument with the wardrobe mistress by snatching a pair of scissors and snipping a costume into pieces. The onlooking cast and chorus burst into applause, an Italian tribute to a flare of real temperament...
Loyalty is a cardinal virtue with Beverly. Nowhere does she show it more strongly than with her family, particularly with Mama. When she made her debut at La Scala, long a dream of hers and Mama's, she wrote a postcard home that said: "We made it, Mom. You and I." There, in seven words, is the whole story of their remarkable bond...