Word: singed
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...traveled in a deluxe private railway car of her own, flanked by husband, dogs, birds and servants. Her fees were stupendous, and one agent protested that she was asking more per month than the President of the U.S. got per year. "Well, then," said Patti stonily, "let him sing...
...ignore the conventional boundaries of soprano, mezzo-soprano and contralto as if they had never been created. She can negotiate the trills and arabesques of coloraturas as easily as she trumpets out a stinging dramatic climax. Like her operatic sisters of a century ago, La Callas can sing anything written for the female voice. Because of her, La Scala has revived some operas (Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio, Verdi's Sicilian Vespers, Cherubini's Medea) that it had not staged for years because no modern diva could carry them...
Midnight Polish. The war over, Maria returned to New York. The Met offered her the role of Madame Butterfly, but she did not dare try it at her weight. A chance to sing in Chicago blew up when the company went broke. For two years she remained in New York, studying, practicing and eating, but never singing in public. Discouraged and despondent, she sailed for Italy, where she got a job in Verona (at $63 a performance), an audition but no job at La Scala (the director told her that she had lots of faults...
...start to tremble. Callas sensibly -if a little too innocently-points out that there are plenty of operas for two top sopranos in La Scala's big repertory. The fact is, Callas thrives on opposition. "When I'm angry, I carr do no wrong," she says. "I sing and act like someone possessed." But Tebaldi wilts. "She's got no backbone. She's not like Callas." Year by year Tebaldi reduced her appearances, until last year she was absent entirely from La Scala, and Callas held the field with 37 performances...
...broke with the maestro who helped her first and most, Conductor Serafin. Her complaint: he recorded Traviata with another soprano. Her decision automatically eliminates Serafin from his old job as conductor for her opera recordings and the old man is finding that other singers are now mysteriously unable to sing under him. Says he: "She is like a devil with evil instincts." Says La Callas: "I understand hate; I respect revenge. You have to defend yourself. You have to be strong, very, very strong. That's what makes you have fights...