Everyone knows that divas constantly throw tantrums and are impossible to handle, right? Well, of course, not quite. I know a few that are very professionnal and, most importantly, real sweethearts. But I must admit that I just love anecdotes that grant me a chance to laugh (just a little bit) at some of their foibles. When, on top of it, we are talking about real stories that happened to superstars, I can’t resist… Don’t worry, I have no intention of keeping them to myself and I am sharing.

• Near the end of a performance at Albert Hall one evening, the famed soprano Luisa Tetrazzini missed a top note. Greatly distressed, she ran off the platform, literally wringing her hands. Then, suddenly stopping, she raced back and, without saying a word, simply sang the single bungled note. The audience erupted with delight.
• When Stella Roman was playing Tosca in Puccini’s opera she was supposed to leap to her death from a prison parapet and land safely off-stage on a mattress. Roman, feeling insecure one night, demanded two extra mattresses. She leaped, and the mattresses bounced her back on stage. She had to kill herself all over again.
• During a performance of Rigoletto in Chile one evening, the audience was mesmerized by a feather floating down, languidly circling, from the building’s rafters. At the critical moment, Louis Quilico threw back his head in song, swallowed the feather, and promptly fainted.
• So total was the absorption of Tito Gobbi and Maria Callas in their roles that when, during a full dress rehearsal three days before opening night, Maria’s wig brushed against a lighted candle and caught fire, she went on singing and continued to do so even as smoke poured from behind her head, and Gobbi rushed across the stage to put the fire out.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 16th, 2010 at 7:45 am and is filed under Humour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.