Cast Out

JASON: Fatal, vile sorceress, Cruel woman, whom I have cast out, go away, go away from here! Your punishment awaits you!

MEDEA : Ah! Leave here? If this is to be my cruel destiny, In leaving, Medea Will tear out your heart! Cruel man!

Onstage in Dallas last week, this exchange took place in Italian between Maria Meneghini Callas and Tenor Jon Vickers in a new production of Medea (see below). But it also summed up Maria Callas' offstage exchange with a far more improbable Jason--the Metropolitan Opera's Rudolf Bing, who last week stunned the Met's public by casting Maria Callas out of his golden opera house.

Callas had broken her contract, Bing explained, by backing out on her agreement (confirmed by her as recently as five weeks ago) to sing in three productions of La Traviata at the Met this season. After lengthy correspondence and, evidently, ample provocation from Callas, Bing wired her an ultimatum that if she did not agree--"by 10 a.m. Thursday"--to sing in Traviata or the substitute roles he offered her, her contract would be canceled.

Bing also issued a waspish, pettish statement to the press: "Madame Callas' reputation for projecting her undisputed histrionic talents into her business affairs is a matter of common knowledge. This, together with her insistence on a claimed right to alter or abrogate a contract at will or at whim, has finally led to the present situation . . . Let us all be grateful that we have had the experience of her artistry for two seasons; the Metropolitan is also grateful that the association is ended . . . I could name a number of very famous singers who thought they were indispensable and would now give their eyeteeth to be back with the Metropolitan."

"Why Pick on Me?" The main trouble, retorted Callas, was that Bing had signed her to sing two performances of Traviata, on Feb. 13 and 17, between two performances of Macbeth on Feb. 5 and 21. "Macbeth is a very heavy opera. I have to build back to my heavy voice, and it takes a month. My voice is not an elevator, going up and down."

But it soon became clear that she did not like the Met's Traviata production; moreover, Renata Tebaldi had been allowed to withdraw from it--so why not Callas? "Those lousy Traviatas he wanted to make me do!" said she. "Why give up a contract of 26 performances just for three lousy Traviatas?"

She would gladly have substituted Tosca for Traviata, said Callas (Bing denied it), or sung three straight Macbeths: "But he offered me Lucia as a substitute which is even more ridiculous than Traviata. A few weeks ago it was reported to me that Mario Del Monaco had canceled Aida, and they gave him another opera. So why pick on me? Is it because I am an American? The others are all foreigners." Said Bing: Tebaldi had canceled Traviata only after she agreed to accept a substitute role, and Del Monaco's cancellation in Aida had been arranged in ample time.

Whose Eyeteeth? Was it true, Callas was asked, that she had told Bing she was going to give up singing? "It is true," said Callas, "that I will not sing routine--those old performances of Norma, Lucia. I think it is my duty as an artist. Once you have Callas, treat her properly."

The news of Callas' firing split the musical world into two shrilly warring camps. Fellow Met stars predictably lined up with Bing (said Baritone Robert Merrill of Callas: "She is a very afraid human being"). The Washington Post's Paul Hume (who once got a letter from President Truman) demanded Bing's resignation. Said Dallas Opera Impresario Lawrence Kelly: "Callas has nothing to worry about. She has the world at her feet."

No amount of brave talk could conceal the fact that, having ruptured relations with the opera companies of Chicago, San Francisco, Rome, Milan and now New York, the world's most exciting singer is left with virtually no place to go except the concert stage. But it was still to be seen who would eventually want to offer those eyeteeth--Callas to be back at the Met, or Bing to get her back.

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