Singer In Verdi’s Home Town Walks Off Stage

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30635, 29 December 1964, Page 3

Singer In Verdi’s Home Town Walks Off Stage

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) PARMA (North Italy), December 28. An American baritone, Cornell Macneil, aged 42, walked out of a first-night performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s “A Masked Ball” at the Rigio Theatre in Parma on Sunday night as a protest at the behaviour of the audience. The singer told a news conference: “If the Parma public wants good singers it must change its attitude and not hold discussions while they are working. If it wants to criticise it can do so afterwards.”

The opera-lovers of Parma, the home town of Verdi, are known for their shouting, whistling, and booing when a performance does not please them.

Macneil vowed he would never again sing at the Regio Theatre, known as the “lion’s pit” of Italian opera. “We do not want him to sing there,” said the theatre’s director, Giuseppi Negri. The two scuffled in Macneil’s dressing room after the uproar between the singer and hecklers.

Negri said he went into Macneil’s dressing room to

plead for his return. “He refused.” said Negri. He argued. Then the baritone, in a fit of temper, hit me with closed fists on the face and arm, although slightly.” Negri added that Macneil’s son “held his father back from continuing his punching prowess.”

Macneil, at his hotel, gave another version. He said: “Negri barged into my dressing room, insulting me. He actually punched me once in the stomach and kicked me twice in the shins, as my son tried to hold him and push him out of the room.” The opera company booked another singer for the next night’s performance.