Word: scala
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Oldtimers at La Scala pronounced her singing sensational. All Milan has been talking this winter about Maria Meneghini Callas. This powerful new dramatic soprano is an American-born singer who has never sung a note in the land of her birth. Her parents, who came from Greece, took her on a lengthy visit to the old country when she was 13, and she has been in the U.S. only once since then...
...first opening night at La Scala, last December, 30-year-old Soprano Callas made a smashing hit in Verdi's Sicilian Vespers. Milan critics kissed their fingertips in ecstasy over her sureness, her "miraculous throat" and the "phosphorescent beauty" of her middle range. Her performances of Norma (eight of them) were enthusiastic sellouts. Last week she was collecting more bravos in a difficult role in which even her most ardent admirers had feared for her: the vocally acrobatic part of Constanze in Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio...
...years ago it was a different story. La Scala heard her then and yawned. Maria Callas thinks she knows why: "I have a funny kind of voice, and often people don't like it the first time they hear it. One has to hear me more and more." After singing in the Italian operatic "sticks"-Parma, Florence, Rome-she finally got a chance at La Scala when leading Soprano Renata Tebaldi fell sick...
...honor of a La Scala premiere is great, but the abuse is often greater. Verdi-happy Milan audiences, traditionally suspicious of new operas, have vented their scorn at scores of composers, including Puccini, whose Madame Butterfly took a fearful drubbing in 1904, and Menotti, whose Consul was hooted last year (TIME, Feb. 5, 1951). Last week a handsomely dressed full house in the 174-year-old Teatro alla Scala gave another honored visitor the works...
Argentina's foremost composer, Juan José Castro,* 57, had reason to believe he would fare pretty well. A panel of distinguished judges, including Stravinsky, Honegger and La Scala's principal conductor, Victor de Sabata, had picked his Proserpina and the Stranger over 137 other entries (16 from the U.S.) in La Scala's international contest for the best three-act opera. A philosophical soul, Castro was surprised but not overwhelmed at winning the contest. Said he: "I am always prepared for things not to go well. For me, submitting the opera was like playing the lottery...