Re: Franco Corelli, opera's most thrilling voice, dies at age 82

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 12:35:25 -0800, Canyon Rick wrote:

>> I just thought I would mention that Corelli did record one Wagner item:
>>  Der Engel from the Wesendonck Lieder:
>> 
>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wesendoncklieder
> 
> There is actually a group dedicated to the Wesendonck Lieder?
> 
> Corelli, however, did have a bit of a spat with everybody's favorite
> Wagnerian, Birgit Nilsson.  In the early 60s, the Met mounted a
> production of Turandot with Nilsson, Price, Corelli, and Stokowski on
> the podium.  I have to admit to little knowledge of Turandot.  I know
> "Nessun dorma", that its Chinese, that there's a riddle, and there's
> these Ping, Pang, and Pong dudes.  During the Met's (then) annual spring
> tour, in Boston, Nilsson and Corelli ended an act or a scene with a
> duet.  For one reson or another, Corelli was unable to hold the final
> note of the duet for very long while Miss Nilsson continued to hold hers
> in full cry.
> Sir Rudolf Bing in his memoirs quotes: "...and he just walked off the
> stage.  I was not in the hall:  an emissary came to me in the lobby and
> said, 'Mr. Bing, we are losing our tenor.'  I went backstage, and even 
> before I neared Corelli's door I heard him screaming, his wife
> screaming, the dog barking.  He had slammed his hand on the dressing
> table, and had picked up a miniscule splinter.  There was a drop of
> blood on the table, and Mrs. was calling for an ambulance.  I calmed
> them down as much as I could, and suggested to Corelli that in the love
> scene in the next act he could get even with Miss Nilsson by biting her
> ear.  That cheered him a great deal; in fact, he liked the idea so much
> that he told Miss Nilsson about it, which gave him all the satisfaction
> of actually biting her without doing it, thank God."
> 
> 
According to *her* memoirs ("La Nilsson", 1995, Stockholm), after hearing
about Bing's advice to Corelli, Ms Nilsson sent Bing, who had left the
next performance early, the following telegram:

"Must cancel next performance badly bitten stop Birgit".

Among many other stories, some of which concern Corelli, she tells of a
tour on which Corelli discovered that Nilsson had a piano in her dressing
room, while there was none in his.  Corelli appealed to Bing, who went to
Nilsson and asked whether she would mind allowing him to have the piano
transferred to Corelli's dressing room.  "By all means", said Ms. Nilsson,
"but unfortunately I do not have the time to teach him to play".

-- 
Derrick Everett   (deverett at c2i.net)
==== Writing from  59°54'N 10°36'E ====
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/index.htm