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Leo Slezak portrait: Public Domain
Frances Alda as Desdemona and Slezak in the title role of Verdi’s Otello at the Metropolitan Opera in 1909.
By White Studio (Metropolitan Opera's Archives) - http://archives.metoperafamily.org/Imgs/Otello1909.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7487415
Check Out: Walter Slezak, What Time’s the Next Swan? (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1962), p. 76.
“Leo Slezak (18 August 1873 – 1 June 1946) was a Moravian dramatic tenor. He was associated in particular with Austrian opera as well as the title role in Verdi’s Otello, He is the father of actors Walter Slezak and Margarete Slezak and grandfather of the actress Erika Slezak.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Slezak
“Papa [Leo Slezak] told her about a Lohengrin performance. It was just before his first entrance. He was ready to step into the boat, which, drawn by a swan, was to take him on-stage. Somehow the stagehand on the other side got his signals mixed, started pulling, and the swan left without Papa. He quietly turned around and said: ‘What time's the next swan?’ That story has since become a classic in operatic lore.”
https://libquotes.com/leo-slezak/quote/lbc2w7v
userfriendly19777
Imagine living your privileged life so isolated from the real world that you don't even know your true financial situation. This could be a plot in a film.
oukid
Check out Elaine May's A NEW LEAF, starring her and Walter Matthew. His character is a rich spendthrift who finds out suddenly that he has spent all his money.
frischcode
To be fair, someone was sending her fake bank statements and whenever she asked for money they gave it to her from his account. Honestly, that's very sweet. And a bit creepy.
friendswithfire
Well you really can’t call it privilege if the time period and social norms dictate that women wouldn’t have been in charge of their own lives let alone finances. Idk this story do I can’t say that’s the case here, but there are long, long stretches in history where women generally wouldn’t have had any financial autonomy. I mean in the US, women couldn’t have credit cards until the 70’s