Prima Donna Maria Callas, past mistress of the grand operatic exit, did it again last week. After her closing performance in Bellini's Il Pirata, she stalked out of Milan's La Scalafor good, she saidand probably out of Italian opera as well. "I leave La Scala with deep pain," she said. "It is no longer compatible with my dignity as a woman and an artist."
Soprano Callas' exit looked to some operagoers like a retreat in her six-year-old war against Soprano Renata Tebaldi. Callas won the first battle in 1955, when her rival disappeared from La Scala; Tebaldi has not sung there since....
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