It was the second act of La Bohême, the cafe scene, where a cart filled with toys is dragged onstage, followed by laughing children. One of the kids was obviously more taken than the others by the singing of famed Metropolitan Basso Ezio Pinza, who was playing Colline. The admiration came naturally: it was his six-year-old daughter, Claudia.
That night in San Francisco was the only time that Claudia was ever allowed on an opera stage with her father. But as a child, she traveled with him on his tours, listened to him from opera-house wings, dressed up in his paints and...
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