Gui conducted "Norma" for Maria Callas's first appearance in this country in November 1952. She was then still stout and bespectacled but her voice was never more splendid. I was playing in the stage band, which seemed to go on for most of the opera in spite of Gui's extensive cuts, and could see the floor of the stage for the first act marked out with luminous paint so that the myopic diva could make her way safely up and down the various levels through the sacred wood to cut the mistletoe. At this time Callas made no attempt to use her latent dramatic abilities, she just stood with folded arms, emitting a stream of wonderful sounds. She sang "Casta Diva" in the original key - a tone higher than anyone sings it nowadays, but she said no one seemed to have noticed and so she would not put herself to any more trouble; in subsequent seasons we pit it down a tone once more. << less