With Leonard Bernstein and Franco Zeffirelli making their Metropolitan Opera debut together in a new production of Verdi's Falstaff, the Met was sure of a sensation. What kind of sensation was a different matter. Bernstein, never one to conceal any possible hidden talents, had not conducted in a major opera house in nine years. Zeffirelli, whose last crack at New York was a disastrous Broadway flop (The Lady of the Camellias), had signed on as director, set designer and costumer in a house where all three jobs are notoriously difficult. But when the curtains parted last...
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