# From Opera News "A Century of the Met"



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

A friend gave me a pile of old Opera News and I thought you would enjoy a couple of the reflections by the prima donnas upon the Met Centennial






. To me the best were Dorothy Kirsten and Nilsson.












Sorry the order of the images was messed up.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Nilsson's memories are typically full of humour. I always like how she comes across in her interviews.

I've always had equivocal feelings about Bing. He doesn't seem to subscribe to the opinion that special people require special treatment. Throughout his book you get the feeling he spent most of the time trying not to give in to singers' demands, however reasonable. I remember him saying something about Tebaldi having "dimples of steel" and that dealing with Callas was difficult because she was so intelligent. Knowing how blind she was on stage, you'd have thought he would have understood her demands for proper stage relhearsals, but she rarely got them and sometimes wouldn't actually see the person she was singing with until the actual performance. Consequently she never really had a good realtionship with the Met and New York saw far less of her than they might have done. By contrast, Callas always had an excellent relationship with Covent Garden and both Lord Harewood and Sir David Webster said she was very easy to deal with.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Nilsson's memories are typically full of humour. I always like how she comes across in her interviews.
> 
> I've always had equivocal feelings about Bing. He doesn't seem to subscribe to the opinion that special people require special treatment. Throughout his book you get the feeling he spent most of the time trying not to give in to singers' demands, however reasonable. I remember him saying something about Tebaldi having "dimples of steel" and that dealing with Callas was difficult because she was so intelligent. Knowing how blind she was on stage, you'd have thought he would have understood her demands for proper stage relhearsals, but she rarely got them and sometimes wouldn't actually see the person she was singing with until the actual performance. Consequently she never really had a good realtionship with the Met and New York saw far less of her than they might have done. By contrast, Callas always had an excellent relationship with Covent Garden and both Lord Harewood and Sir David Webster said she was very easy to deal with.


I've heard from a couple of New Yorkers who saw Callas at the Met that they didn't get what all the fuss was about until her Mexico recordings were released by the pirates, which is interesting, although she wasn't at her best in her New York performances and even Chicago got a better array of performances. Wasn't Covent Garden working according to the repertoire system back then like the Met? It seems that they were running it better (perhaps the Met only had extensive rehearsals for new productions, whereas Callas was doing revivals and she and Bing couldn't agree when it came to discussing new productions). In any case Callas was treated like a star in most houses, but at the Met she was treated like one singer among many.

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Thanks for these snippets, Nillson's anecdotes are always fun. What did Dorothy Kirsten say?

N.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

The Conte said:


> Thanks for these snippets, Nillson's anecdotes are always fun. What did Dorothy Kirsten say?
> 
> N.









Sorry, it is hard to get an image without reflection from the light source.


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## Andante Cantabile (Feb 26, 2020)

The Conte said:


> I've heard from a couple of New Yorkers who saw Callas at the Met that they didn't get what all the fuss was about until her Mexico recordings were released by the pirates, which is interesting, although she wasn't at her best in her New York performances and even Chicago got a better array of performances. Wasn't Covent Garden working according to the repertoire system back then like the Met? It seems that they were running it better (perhaps the Met only had extensive rehearsals for new productions, whereas Callas was doing revivals and she and Bing couldn't agree when it came to discussing new productions). In any case Callas was treated like a star in most houses, but at the Met she was treated like one singer among many.
> 
> N.


There were negotiations between the Met and the Meneghinis around late 1952-early 1953 for Callas to sing a run of _Traviata_s in the final weeks of the 1952-53 Met season at $600 per performance. Unfortunately restrictions imposed by the so-called McCarran Internal Security Act in the US prevented Callas' husband from getting a US visa, and Callas wouldn't travel to the US without Meneghini, so the plan was abandoned. Had the trip been been materialised, the New Yorkers would have heard her in her pre-diet vocal prime and her then 'Amazonian' Violetta would have created a furore there.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Augastine said:


> There were negotiations between the Met and the Meneghinis around late 1952-early 1953 for Callas to sing a run of _Traviata_s in the final weeks of the 1952-53 Met season at $600 per performance. Unfortunately restrictions imposed by the so-called McCarran Internal Security Act in the US prevented Callas' husband from getting a US visa, and Callas wouldn't travel to the US without Meneghini, so the plan was abandoned. Had the trip been been materialised, the New Yorkers would have heard her in her pre-diet vocal prime and her then 'Amazonian' Violetta would have created a furore there.


Can you imagine if they had been recorded!!!!!!!!!!!!


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