Problem-Solving

"¢ Vincenzo Bellini's opera "œLa Sonnambula" is about a sleepwalker. For the performance of the singer playing the sleepwalker to be effective, she must keep her eyes closed, but of course then she can't see to move around and walk to the bed on stage. At a 1963 production at La Scala in Milan, Maria Callas kept her eyes tightly shut yet walked directly to the bed on stage night after night. Opera expert Hugh Vickers asked Luchino Visconti how this was possible. The answer was that Ms. Callas was using her sense of smell on stage. She had complimented Mr. Visconti on a scent he wore, so he had doused a handkerchief with it and placed it on the bed.

"¢ In the early days of radio, during a live radio broadcast, the lights in the studio went out, and the NBC musical director, Frank Black, had to quickly think what to do. He immediately announced that the orchestra would play "The Stars and Stripes Forever," knowing that this was a piece of music which any orchestra should be able to play without looking at printed music. To fill the time left in the broadcast, the orchestra played the music over and over and over. At the end of the scheduled broadcast, the announcer told the radio audience, "Frank Black and the orchestra have played "The Stars and Stripes ... Forever."

"¢ As a man with cerebral palsy, which makes his arm movements difficult to control, Cordell Brown has had many interesting experiences in life. Once he took a test for a license to ride a motorized scooter. He did fine on the written part of the test and on most of the driving test, but made his driving instructor laugh at his attempts to control his arm movements and signal turns. Although the driving instructor laughed, he still was forced to deny Mr. Brown his license. No problem. Mr. Brown simply installed hand signals on his scooter and passed the test the second time he took it.

"¢ While on tour with the Mapleson Opera Company, Etelka Gerster became stubborn after her sleeping car broke down, and the train stopped so that the broken car could be put on a side rail. Against all reason, Ms. Gerster absolutely refused to leave the sleeping car. Fortunately, Colonel James H. Mapleson solved the problem by convincing a very handsome station agent to play the role of the president of the railroad. The station agent flattered the stubborn coloratura, then convinced her to travel in another sleeping car which he said had been prepared especially for her.

"¢ Roger Prout used to help produce operas for the Welsh National Opera Company. One problem that concerned him was the breakage of glass props such as champagne glasses as the company moved from town to town. Writing "Fragile - Handle with Care" on the box didn't work, so he looked up the chemical formula for glass, then wrote "Na2 SiO3/Ca Si O3 - Handle with Extreme Care - Do Not Smoke" on the box. The breakage problem stopped immediately.

"¢ Although the French horn is a brass instrument, it cannot sound as strong as the trombone. When Fritz Reiner was rehearsing the Philadelphia Orchestra, he kept demanding more and more volume from the horns. Finally, first horn Anton Horner went over to Maestro Reiner, grabbed his thumb, squeezed it until it turned purple, then said, "This is what is happening to us - circulation is cut off, and lips become numb."

"¢ A big van once drove into an underpass that was just a little too short for it to pass through. The van got stuck, and the driver was unable to drive either forward or backward. Several people argued about the best way to get the van through the underpass, but a little boy came up with the solution - let some of the air out of the tires and drive the van through.

"¢ During a golf tournament, Walter Hagen hit his ball into a paper bag that had blown into a sand trap. After asking for a ruling, he was told that he couldn't take a free drop and that his options were to play the ball or to take a one-stroke penalty for an unplayable lie. Mr. Hagen responded by lighting a cigarette, taking a drag on it, then dropping the cigarette on the paper bag. The bag burned up, and Mr. Hagen played the lie.

"¢ George Frideric Handel once had trouble with Francesca Cuzzoni, one of the singers in his opera "Ottone." Being quite strong, Handel picked up Ms. Cuzzoni and held her out a window, two stories above the street, and threatened to drop her. Ms. Cuzzoni decided to sing her part the way Mr. Handel wanted her to.

"¢ Thomas Beecham and his orchestra once had trouble passing through Irish customs, so they decided to do something to prove that they were harmless. Some members of the orchestra played "The Keel Row" and Mr. Beecham danced an Irish jig. The Irish music and dance greatly speeded their passage through customs.

"¢ Chi Chi Rodriguez grew up in poverty in Puerto Rico. As a boy, he created his own golf equipment. He carved his first club out of a branch of a guava tree, and his first ball was a crushed tin can. Sam Snead did much the same thing - he made his first club from the branch of a swamp maple.

"¢ As a young man, Thomas Beecham was annoyed by poor service at the Savoy Hotel. He once said that after waiting 20 minutes to be served, "I stood on the table and clapped two plates together, and I have had wonderful service there ever since."

"¢ After years of performing, ballerina Cynthia Gregory has learned to place her personal items - hair spray, makeup, comb and brush, etc. - in the same place each time on her makeup table so she can quickly find what she wants, even when she is in a new theater.

"¢ Watanabe Kazan (1793-1841), a samurai and a painter, was once placed under house arrest and ordered not to paint. Because he needed the income he derived from painting, he continued to paint, but added earlier dates to his paintings to fool the authorities.