| re: James Levine passed away over a week ago | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 05:21 pm EDT 03/17/21 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 05:05 pm EDT 03/17/21 | |
| In reply to: re: James Levine passed away over a week ago - Michael_Portantiere 03:02 pm EDT 03/17/21 | |
|
|
|
| I used to know her manager, introduced by a friend, a very nice man. I once asked about her, and he rather diplomatically told me that she was "challenging". Talking about some repertoire she was featuring and doing around then, he told me the Met didn't want to pay her full star salary for Despina by then (she had done it before she became a big star) in "Cosi Fan Tutte" because her part was considered the terza donna (3rd lady) in that opera, almost secondary character. I think her light lyric rep was a bit limiting in what the Met considered prima donna roles, even though she was well-known. Zerbinetta in "Ariadne auf Naxos" Rosina in "Barber of Seville", Susanna in "Marriage of Figaro" and Adina in "Elixir of Love" with Pavarotti were among her leading roles that the Met considered her worth their salary top. "Daughter" would have been too, had she not been fired from it. There were plenty of stories I had heard and read about her back then. There apparently was an incident that season, not long before the firing, that someone informed me about. At a full orchestral rehearsal with Christian Thielemann conducting, Battle stopped to either argue or confer with the conductor over tempi or some other issues, when that is not the proper time to do so, with the whole orchestra being paid and waiting. I don't know how many times she stopped what he was trying to do, but apparently he had it, since at one point he's reputed to have said "Get the cover!" (the understudy) and she stormed off. There were reports that she told people not to look at her ON STAGE when she was rehearsing, as people looking at her was making her nervous. There's the possibly true and infamous one about her calling her manager on her phone from her limo or car to ask him to telephone her driver to turn off the air conditioning or some other ridiculous demand. But all this was building up to the firing. Apparently Levine didn't do anything about her up to this time, since she was a friend of his. But then Joe Volpe ascended to actually running the Met after Levine had left the position of General Manager to only be Music Director. Regarding the firing, i believe they were rehearsing "Daughter of the Regiment" which she had previously at the time just done at San Francisco Opera; folks there had t-shirts apparently proclaiming "We Survived the [Kathleen] Battle!". I think Joe Volpe finally stepped in either at or following a Sitzprobe where Battle just said something really mean directed at Elias. I don't know what was said. But Rosalind Elias was, as you said, a beloved member of the Met family for many years, as well as a close friend of Joe Volpe. Volpe fired Battle, and it was probably the biggest firing headlines from the Met since Maria Callas, given Battle's fame at the time and her close relationship to Levine. |
|
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | re: James Levine passed away over a week ago - Michael_Portantiere 03:02 pm EDT 03/17/21 |
| Next: | re: James Levine passed away over a week ago - larry13 09:39 pm EDT 03/17/21 |
| Thread: |
|
Time to render: 0.015423 seconds.