Word: scotto
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...full of golden promises; Europe was full of needy stars. In Milan, in Vienna and in Paris, they signed up; they all wanted to make their fame & fortune in the U.S. For singing with the official-sounding "United States Opera Company," Ottavio Scotto, a Chicago opera impresario who once managed Enrico Caruso and Claudia Muzio, offered salaries up to $1,000 a performance and first-class passage on the Queen Elizabeth...
Last week in Chicago the singers wished they were back in Europe. They were nearly broke, sometimes hungry and always bewildered. Chicago's Civic Opera House, the house that Insull built, was ready for their premiere and so were they (with Puccini's Turandot). But Impresario Scotto, who had spent $45,000 to bring them over, was broke too. His angel, a Manhattan manufacturer of lubricating equipment, would put up no more money. The opening was postponed because there weren't enough funds to pay the stagehands and musicians...
After two weeks' trying Scotto claimed that he had raised enough money to guarantee a week's run. Lawrence Tibbett, head of the American Guild of Musical Artists, said it was no go: Scotto would have to stick by his contract and post two weeks' salary before the 40-odd people in the U.S. chorus, all A.G.M.A. members, could participate. Sputtered Impresario Scotto: "It is to be ashamed . . . to spoil an opera season like this...
This week Scotto was still trying to raise money, but the singers had given up hope of doing any opera in the U.S. They were rehearsing a one-night benefit for themselves to pay their way home. Somebody had told them they could get passage cheap on a freight boat out of Baltimore...
...foxhole on a hilltop beyond El Guettar, reading a magazine when the shelling got heavy by day and at night lying there waiting to know if his number was coming up. To Corporal Isaac Lorenzo Moroni Parker it was the sonofabitching Kasserine Pass. To Private First Class Michael Scotto di Clementi it was digging a slit trench beside the colonel's tent in an oasis and wondering if anybody remembered Micky Scott of Our Gang comedies. To Major General Terry Allen it was a satisfying pride in his 1st Division and an occasional chance to talk polo with...