Word: stefano
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Italian opera box office offers something of a demurrer. The biggest crowds today come to see the costliest productions; about the only singers in the country who can fill a theater by their names alone any more are Maria Callas and Giuseppe di Stefano. And Di Stefano feels the wind blowing against him. "If music cannot get people into the theater any more," says he, "it's time for us to pack up. If the public goes to La Scala to see how many bananas are hanging on a wall on the stage and not to hear the singers...
...curtain time last week, Italian opera fans had promised to fill the theater and boo Von Karajan right off the podium. Tenor Gianni Raimondi, who was hired to sing the role, was getting threatening phone calls for betraying his countryman. Said Di Stefano: "I'm seriously thinking of going to live in Katanga, where they are more civilized...
...sometimes sang Rodolfo's Che gelida manina aria from La Bohème a halftone down from the high C that Puccini's score calls for-and Puccini wrote a letter saying he liked it better that way. But when Italy's beloved tenor Giuseppi Di Stefano showed up at La Scala to rehearse Rodolfo in a new production of La Boheme under Austria's Herbert von Kara Jan. he was stopped by La Scala's tearful manager. "Oh, dear Di Stefano," said the manager, "Von Karajan doesn't want you because you sing...
Such an insult was certain to send an Italian tenor up to his top register, and coming from an Austrian, it was more than any Italian could bear. DI STEFANO...
SACKED BY VON KARAJAN. Cried the headlines, and Di Stefano announced he would sue La Scala and Von Karajan for defamation of character. Von Karajan denied he knew Di Stefano had even been signed to sing with him, and when La Scala paid Di Stefano his regular $10,000 fee despite the fact that he was not going to perform. Giuseppi simmered down. But not his friends. "Don't let yourself be insulted by a foreigner," they cautioned him. Quickly working himself back into a proper Sicilian rage, Di Stefano turned his $10,000 over to the Italian Opera...