Quarterly Quiz

As part of The Opera Quarterly's continuing effort to provide our readers with anecdotes to tell at parties, we present this quiz on famous opera singers. These stories have been gleaned from a number of biographies, autobiographies, and books about music, all of which are referenced in the answer section at the back of this issue. The directions for our quiz are simple: read and enjoy the anecdote, identify the singer involved, and check your answers on pages 410-411. (Caveat: stories take on a life of their own, and the same one may sometimes be told about more than one singer or may acquire factual inaccuracies as it is told and retold. The emphasis in this Quarterly Quiz is on humor, so enjoy.)

1. As a small boy, this tenor spent time in a hospital because of his congenital bilateral glaucoma. His eyes hurt, and he was restless. However, his mother discovered that at times when he lay pressed against a wall he became relaxed, and when he moved away from the wall he cried. His mother moved next to the wall and concentrated. From the room next door came the faint sound of music. She went next door and requested permission to sometimes bring her son in to visit and to listen to the record player. In this way, the future operatic tenor discovered music. Name the tenor who suffered from congenital bilateral glaucoma.

2. This tenor sang the part of Styx in Jacques Offenbach's Orphée aux enfers with Teresa Stich-Randall at the Grand Theater in Geneva. During celebrations for New Year's Eve, this tenor decided to make a play on the names "Stich" and "Styx," and so he sang, "Listen, if you marry me, you will have almost nothing to change on your calling card!" Both Stich-Randall and the audience enjoyed the joke. Name the joking tenor.

3. This anecdote may not be true, but it is a good one. One day this tenor and Enrico Caruso met on the street. This tenor asked, "How is the world's greatest tenor?" Caruso answered, "And since when have you become a baritone?" Name the tenor whom Caruso complimented.

4. During the mid-1950s, this Metropolitan Opera soprano's little son Mikie learned to enjoy opera music after a brief time of telling his mother, "No more pracikising! I don't like opera music!" Soon his favorite music included "Three Blind Mice," "Little Red Monkey," and the overture from Carmen. This soprano frequently sang on television, and her family would gather in the living room to watch her. Mikie would shout, "That's Mommy! That's Mommy!" That is, unless she was wearing a black wig over her own blond hair for a role. Then little Mikie would look at her and say sadly, "That's not Mommy. It's a different lady." Name the occasionally brunette soprano.

5. This tenor was capable of great kindness. While staying at the Knickerbocker Hotel, he became friends with the proprietor, James Regan. After noticing a line of shabbily dressed men waiting outside a side door at the hotel, this tenor asked Regan who they were. It turned out that they were impoverished men waiting for a handout of whatever food was left over after the hotel restaurant closed. This tenor asked if the men ever were served steak, and of course they weren't. Therefore, he said, "Those men should have beefsteak. They are poor and cold, and steaks would be good for them. I tell you what, Jimmy—tonight, you give them good, thick beefsteaks instead of the stew, and send the bill to me." Name the generous tenor.

6. In his student days, this bass once ran away from the conservatory, signed a contract to sing at Salerno, and received a month's salary in advance. He subsequently had a good time in Naples and spent all the money. He owned a portmanteau but had nothing that would fill it. Aware that...