Embattled Opera Queen’s Career Takes Another Turn : Kathleen Battle Performs in Her First L.A. Show Since Her Dismissal From the Met

Opera lovers, man your Battle stations.

Kathleen Battle, one of the premier sopranos of our time, hasn’t performed in an opera since she was fired for what was termed unprofessional behavior by the Metropolitan Opera last year. Nor does she have any upcoming engagements with leading U.S. opera companies.

Rather, the career of the much-lauded singer--who takes the stage tonight at the Hollywood Bowl in her first local appearance since 1993--looks as though it’s taken a decisive turn. Since the Met gave Battle the ax, she has become, for the time being at least, exclusively a recital, concert and recording artist.

Of course, Battle is hardly the first opera superstar to be canned for uppity behavior. Yet others have escaped without a long-term decline in performance dates.

Maria Callas, a.k.a. “La Divina,” was fired by Rudolf Bing in 1958, yet she continued to sing opera into the ‘60s (and even made up with Bing and the Met). More recently, Lyric Opera of Chicago general manager Ardis Krainik sent Luciano Pavarotti packing in 1989 after the tenor canceled one too many of his engagements there.

The irony of Battle’s plight, though, stems in part from her famously humble origins. The soprano, who turns 47 on Sunday, was an elementary school teacher in Ohio with a background in church music before being spotted in the early 1970s by James Levine, who joined the Met in 1971. She went on to make her Met debut in 1977.

Then, during the 1980s, her career hit the fast track. She also began to develop a reputation as a particularly temperamental artist, even in the diva-strewn universe of opera. The stories of her snit fits are, in fact, legend.

She has canceled rehearsals and performances, picked fights with other singers and reportedly sent back limos (including the one sent to fetch her for her performance at President Clinton’s inaugural) because they weren’t long enough.

After being subjected to a particularly infamous set of the singer’s “hissy” fits in 1993, San Francisco Opera staffers donned T-shirts proclaiming “I survived the Battle.” That same year, the soprano stormed out of, and later quit, during rehearsals for the “Der Rosenkavalier” at the Met.

The putative Battle royal, however, was when she was sacked from the Met in February of 1994, following what general manager Joseph Volpe called “unprofessional actions.” Battle, who has long been associated with the Met in particular, had been rehearsing the role of Marie in Donizetti’s “La Fille du Regiment” at the time.

Reportedly, Battle had objected to having to go to daily rehearsals. Then, after the rehearsal schedule was retooled to accommodate her, she remained uncooperative, arriving late, pulling no-shows and behaving abusively toward her fellow artists.

In response to Volpe’s action, Battle issued a statement saying that she wasn’t “told by anyone at the Met about any unprofessional actions.” She also denied any knowledge of why she was fired and said she was “saddened” by the whole thing.

Yet Battle has refused to talk about the episode since, and declined to speak to The Times for this article as well. Calls to her management, Columbia Artists, also went unreturned.

Clearly, though, Battle’s career has changed. It’s true that her operatic engagements at the Met and at other opera houses already had been declining in favor of concerts and recitals, but they had not altogether disappeared.

In the months following her dismissal, she gave concerts or recitals in Montreal, Chicago and Toronto, among others, and made three appearances at New York’s Carnegie Hall--the first of which was a mere three weeks after the Met episode.

This year, Battle has sung recitals in Vancouver; Norfolk, Va.; and Boulder, Colo. She also performed with baritone Thomas Hampson, broadcast by PBS on “Live From Lincoln Center.”

Her recording career has continued to shine. For instance, Battle was awarded a post-Met Grammy for best opera recording of 1993, for her part in the Deutsche Grammophon edition of Handel’s “Semele,” singing the role of the titular Greek princess.

Volpe said when he fired Battle that he had “canceled all offers that have been made” to her for future shows and he has, according to a Met spokesperson, been sticking to his guns on this. But then again, as Volpe also told the New York Times last year, “I never say never.”

* Kathleen Battle with the L.A. Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood; tonight at 8:30, $1-$23, (213) 850-2000.