Operatic sopranos who sing the lead parts have long been known as prima donnas, Italian for first lady. In the 19th century English-speaking world, they became known as divas, for their divine voices.

Their behavior hasn’t always been divine, though. Both prima donna and diva have come to mean a self-centered, unreasonable woman.

All the following anecdotes are about divas in the first sense of the term, and some were diva’s in the second.

Francesca Cuzzoni vs Faustina Bordoni

These two Italian divas were born only a year apart. Londoners called Cuzzoni the “old siren” and Bordoni the “new siren” only because Cuzzoni established her career there first.

They both had beautiful voices and brilliant technique. Both earned rave reviews for their performances. Bordoni was also a beautiful woman. No one ever said the same of Cuzzoni.

Cuzzoni, more than her rival, had a reputation for conceit and obstinance. I have already written about her first rehearsal in London to sing in Handel’s Ottone. She had a tantrum, so Handel dragged her to a second-floor window and threatened to drop her.

Four years later, Handel invited Bordoni to London. She and Cuzzoni immediately hated each other and made sure everyone knew it. The public eagerly chose sides and behaved as badly as the two divas. They disrupted performances with boos and hisses when their rivals’ favorite sang. Writers published vicious satires of the two singers. Race horses named Cuzzoni and Faustina carried the rivalry to the track.

Cuzzoni and Bordoni both had roles in a performance of Bononcini’s Astianatte in 1727. Fans of the one booed the other so loudly neither singer could make herself heard. Each considered the other to be at fault. They became so enraged that they physically attacked each other and had to be escorted off stage. The spectacle so offended the Prince of Wales, who was in the audience that night, that the rest of the entire operatic season was canceled.

Adelina Patti

Adelina Patti, the most famous singer of the 19th century, probably never screamed at anyone or attacked anyone, but she always seemed to get her way.

And her way involved lots of money. She demanded $5,000 a night, to be paid in gold at least 12 hours before the curtain rose. For an American tour, she charged $100,000 for three months. When the manager balked, saying that was more than the President made, she told him to ask the President to sing.

Besides money, she required top billing for every performance and insisted that her name be printed in a larger font than anyone else’s. Her contracts specified that she could attend as many rehearsals as she wanted, but didn’t require her to attend any. She traveled everywhere by private railway car.

She had retired from the stage by the time she had opportunity to make recordings, just before her 63rd birthday. As always, she set the terms for her participation. She would not travel to a studio. No, she required the recording company bring its equipment to her home.

When she heard herself after the first session, she exclaimed, “Ah! My Lord! Now I understand why I am Patti! Oh yes! What a voice! What an artist! I understand everything!”

A reviewer, on the other hand, compared her recorded voice to the Cheshire cat’s grin. It hadn’t quite disappeared. But as he described in some detail, Patti past her prime is still very much worth listening to.

Nellie Melba

A generation younger than Patti, Australian-born Helen Porter Mitchell became a sensation in English-speaking countries under the name Nellie Melba.

She sang only a few roles, including the supporting role of Michaela in Carmen. People wondered why a prima donna would sing such a role, but she wrote in her memoirs that she could see no reason why not and hated the artistic snobbery of the question.

Does that mean she had less ego than Patti? Not a bit.

She insisted that her dressing room at Covent Garden should be off limits to any other singer, whether she was anywhere in England or not. She once pushed the tenor John McCormack out of the way when she took a curtain call, hissing that no one took a bow with Nellie Melba.

Melba also didn’t like it when younger operatic sopranos wanted the roles she was famous for. She could make life difficult for them as they tried to sing high notes. Once at a party, she ridiculed Luiza Tetrazzini by dropping to all fours, pretending to be the poor horse that would have to carry her obese rival. (Tetrazzini believed that she needed all that weight to sing as well as she did.)

To be fair, she raised a lot of money for charity during the First World War. When the tenor in a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor became ill in the middle of a first-act duet, she covered for him by singing his music as well as her own.

Maria Callas

Maria Callas lacked the outsized ego of so many other operatic sopranos, but she had a fiery temperament. Perhaps it’s only fitting that it was she who caught her wig on fire during a rehearsal for Tosca.

Tito Gobbi, playing Scarpio, gave her a big hug and closed his hands to extinguish the flames. She had no idea of the reason for the unexpected embrace until Gobbi held his injured hand in front of her face and pointed to the candles.

That’s not the only story about Callas and Gobbi in Tosca. She played her part so fiercely that he was afraid of her. Tosca kills Scarpio in the second act, and once the knife failed to retract and Gobbi was wounded. He continued with the death scene, but it’s a good thing he was through for the night.

On another occasion, the near-sighted Callas couldn’t find the way off stage after killing Scarpio. Gobbi, the supposed corpse, tried to point to the exit discretely, but then burst out laughing.

Stories about Callas and the Met’s general manager Rudolf Bing are less humorous. They clashed throughout the 1950s until Bing fired her in 1958. In 1965, though, she returned to the Met for two now legendary performances of Tosca.

Kathleen Battle

Has any diva had a more appropriate name than Kathleen Battle?

She has a beautiful voice. The story of how a young black music teacher in Cincinnati became a star at the Metropolitan Opera should have been heartwarming, but she soon forgot the people who made her rise to fame possible.

Her ugly behavior matched the beauty of her voice. It figures in so many stories it’s fair to wonder if they’re all true. But after one season in San Francisco, the crew had tee shirts made saying, “I survived the Battle.”

Battle treated members of the stage crews, costumers, and makeup artists with such contempt that they hated her. Once she threw another soprano’s clothes out of a dressing room she wanted. When she didn’t like the picture for an album cover, she held up its release for six months, which cost the record company $50,000. She frequently changed hotels when on tour. Her attendance at rehearsals was as spotty as Patti’s, without the benefit of terms of her contract.

In 1993, she disliked conductor Christian Thielemann. Only a few days before the scheduled opening of Der Rosenkavalier, Battle stormed into her dressing room, vowing to quit the performance unless Joseph Volpe, the Met’s general manager, came to her dressing room immediately. He didn’t. And when he appeared, he backed Thielemann. Eventually, someone persuaded Battle to return.

The following year, she was engaged for only one opera, La fille du regiment. She insisted on changing the rehearsal schedule and then showed up late. When she insulted a pianist who was supposed to perform onstage, Volpe dismissed her and canceled all future contracts. And she never appeared on an operatic stage again until, in 2016, when another Met general manager, Peter Gelb, invited her to perform a recital of spirituals.

For a refreshing change from egotistical operatic sopranos, read about Jenny Lind and her commitment to charity.

Sources:
Adelina Patti––the queen of song / Don, Great voices of opera . . . plus. May 17, 2016
Bloody battle at the Met: prima donna/chief singer in opera temperamentally self-important / Peter Pringle, The Independent. February 17, 1994
Divas have had a gutful / Anna McAlister, The Age. May 3, 2005
Five of the most notoriously difficult divas in the history of opera / Genevieve Heely, Operagasm. May 12, 2014
Opera anecdotes: Tosca by Giacomo Puccini / Opera Spoofa. [2012]
Whine, women and song: the bitter rivalry of Handel’s divas / Independent. April 28, 2008

Photo credits:
Bordoni. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons
Cuzzoni. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons
Patti. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons
Melba. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons
Callas Some rights reserved by iClassical.com
Battle. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons