Tired & Happy

The Metropolitan Opera faced an exhausting week. It began when the stagehands, who have worked for more than a year without a contract, failed to turn up for a rehearsal of Bellini's Norma. Members of the office staff sweated over heavy props and managed to get some of the proper lights running.

Grimy and tieless, General Manager Rudolf Bing practiced with the heavy gold curtain, nearly clipped a couple of principal singers with a fast curtain at the end of Act I. The show, he panted, would go on that night without scenery if necessary. But before curtain time, the stagehands returned, and the evening's opera, a well-tried Tannhaeuser, went smoothly.

Soprano Gamut. Next night came the company's first Norma in nine years. Written in 1831, Norma was one of the last of the bel canto operas, designed chiefly for vocal acrobatics. The scene is Gaul of the Druids' day. Norma is a high priestess who has broken her vow of chastity and borne the Roman proconsul two children, only to find that he really loves a younger priestess. Much of the melody is limp as a drink of water and the harmonies have the simple severity of Stonehenge, but fastidious fans love it.

So do sopranos; the name role has been tackled by the world's top prima donnas from Giuditta Pasta (who created it) to Jenny Lind, Lilli Lehmann and Rosa Ponselle. Norma is on stage--and singing--for almost two hours, or long enough to satisfy the heartiest spotlight appetite. She ranges the emotional gamut from mother love to infanticide. Best of all, the part is almost impossible to sing, and few of today's voices can both spin the intricate tracery of its high coloratura and belt out the chesty low tones.

Celtic Bruennhilde. The Met's Zinka Milanov is one of the few. Possessed of a voice unsurpassed nowadays for sheer beauty and warmth, Yugoslav Soprano Milanov has a controlling interest in the company's dramatic Italian leads, i.e., in Aida, Trovatore, Forza del Destino, and a monopoly on Norma. After a whole season of preparation for the part, she appeared on stage looking something like a Celtic Bruennhilde.

Her first number was the opera's famed Casta Diva (Stainless Goddess), which, while not Norma's most difficult number, is hardly a piece to warm up on. She threaded her way carefully but spiritedly through the opera's complicated cadenzas with a generous use of her pearly pianissimo, came dramatically and vocally into her own in the second and third acts and at the end, despite signs of weariness (she began to sing sharp), won a personal ovation. Most thrilling moments: her soaring duets with Mezzo-Soprano Fedora Barbieri.

When it was all over, Diva Milanov retired to her dressing room to munch an apple and then greet 100 or so admirers in relays of five. By 1 a.m. she was exhausted, but happily planning four more Normas in what is left of the season.

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