bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1993) — Spring 1993 // Printemps 1993, pp. 34–35
It was intermission period at a concert by the Vienna Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. A dark-haired woman, sitting in the back row of the diplomatic loge, evidently had overheard that I was the Canadian Ambassador and approached my wife saying, “You must know who I am — Teresa Stratas”
My wife, recalling that some years before she had seen Teresa Stratas in a film with Placido Domingo, responded to her saying, “Your hair has changed somewhat since the days when you sang with Placido Domingo.” The woman answered that she had been ill and that this accounted from the change in her hair (although it was still jet black).
We brought her to the front row of the loge then for a better view of the star soloist of the concert, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. Teresa regaled us with several interesting facets of Dame Kiri’s life and seemed to be very knowledgeable about singing opera. At the end of the concert, we offered to drive her to her hotel, but she expressed a preference to walk.
Before departing, however, I invited her to come to Canada’s 125th Birthday reception and asked where the invitation should be sent. She wanted to know who would be attending, and suggested that it would be best if she telephoned my secretary to obtain the details. After she left, I commented to my wife that we probably would never hear from her again.
About one week later, however, Teresa contacted us and suggested we might like to take her to dinner at a restaurant – one of Vienna’s most expensive. I countered with an invitation to dine at the official residence, and suggested that before dinner she might like a drive to view Vienna from a vantage point high in the Vienna Woods. She accepted, and arrangements were made for us to pick her up at a side door of her hotel. She did not wish us to meet her in the lobby of the hotel because she feared there would be too many people seeking autographs.
On the appointed evening, my driver and I met her at the side door of the hotel as agreed. It appeared to be the entrance to several private apartments. When we stopped at the official residence to pick up my wife before driving to the Vienna Woods, Teresa insisted that we turn the engine off and that we not open the car doors for three minutes because the exhaust from the car would interfere with her voice. In the Vienna Woods, she seemed to have a phobia about walking under trees — this I put down to being a prima donna of the opera.
When we returned to the official residence, I showed her several pictures in some books we had which recounted her past performances — and she told us stories about the various performances. At the dinner table, she spoke to us about Placido Domingo and her earlier “close relationship” with Zubin Mehta. She informed us that she had donated all her earnings to Mother Teresa’s projects in India and consequently had little money of her own.
My wife was curious about her English, and asked her where she had learned English. It was heavily accented and did not seem to be the product of a Toronto school, where we knew Teresa Stratas had been educated. She explained that her parents had insisted that she attend a Greek school in Toronto and consequently she had retained a Greek accent.
She had an answer for everything and seemed to have studied intensively all facets of the life of Teresa Stratas. Her insistence that the servants cut all her food into small pieces and the number of pills she took at the dinner table seemed strange, but we assumed these were merely further traits of a prima donna.
After dinner, I asked Teresa to sign the official guest book. She refused to do this but promised to send us an autographed picture. She then suggested that we listen to her latest arias on tape which she had brought with her. Although it was by now almost midnight, we agreed to do so. When the first tape was finished, she suggested that we listen to another one. At this, my wife had to interject because we were leaving Vienna early the next morning on an official trip — therefore, our driver would have to take her home now!
A week later when we returned to Vienna, in our mail we found a photograph of Teresa with Placido Domingo. It had been taken some years before although it sported an autographed inscription signed by Teresa Stratas and addressed to us stating that “music was the love of my life” “. Later that same day, we learned from our Cultural Attaché (who had heard it from a Canadian violinist) that someone posing as Teresa Stratas had been present lately in Vienna! After receiving this information, we discovered that the real Teresa Stratas was at a hotel in New York City where she had been for the past month rehearsing for her next role at the Metropolitan Opera.
We gave the Viennese police the telephone number for our “Viennese” Teresa Stratas. They conducted a raid on the apartment and discovered a 38 year old Greek woman masquerading as Teresa Stratas. She held several passports and, in the name of Teresa Stratas, had incurred several hefty (and needless to say unpaid) medical bills from leading Viennese doctors. The police warned the impostor not to continue with the charade. However, they could do nothing more because to their knowledge she had not gained sufficient amounts fraudulently to run afoul of Austrian laws.
We conveyed this information to the real Teresa Stratas in New York who was naturally somewhat perturbed. She was amused, however, that a 38 year old could masquerade as her double in view of the fact that she herself was already in her early 50s!
The imposter was never seen again in the diplomatic loge of the Vienna Symphony Hall. In a 37-year diplomatic career, during which many strange things had happened in various lands, never once had either my wife or I knowingly encountered an imposter!
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 10, No. 2 (1993) — Spring 1993 // Printemps 1993, pp. 34–35. Read the rest of this issue →
