I'm pretty sure the book was Molto Agitato by Johanna Fiedler. Basically Battle was a sweetheart around the time of her big debut in the late 70s, had freaked out by 1980, acted like a diva one too many times through the 80s (threw Carol Vaness out of the lead dressing room when Carol was the Countess in Figaro and she was Susanna - the Countess is considered the lead, although her role is shorter; wouldn't allow support staff at certain houses to look at her; on visit to Japan, refused to briefly lend her interpreter to Levine when his was unavailable to him). Alienated a lot of colleagues, and by the time she got the boot from the Met, it was the only major opera house still willing to employ her, and that only because she and James Levine were still friends. But she pissed off Joseph Volpe with her behavior, alienated Levine in the process, and that was pretty much it.
The soprano who replaced her in that final Met production was, IIRC, Barbara Hendricks. This was a Big Deal in minxland at the time because my coach had been the coach of BH's coach. Alas, my coach also was falling into Alzheimer's, so I only got to work with her for about a year. Between her and the last coach I worked with, someone from Eastman who moved to FL, I made about as much progress in two years as I had in the previous FIVE years with my first coach. (Evelyn - the very famous coach with Alzheimer's - was the coach of my first coach, too. She should have passed me off to Evelyn years before she actually did. Although, one reason she didn't, aside from having a little showpiece student, was that Evelyn was only in our area for half the year, and spent the rest of the year in upstate NY.)
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The soprano who replaced her in that final Met production was, IIRC, Barbara Hendricks. This was a Big Deal in minxland at the time because my coach had been the coach of BH's coach. Alas, my coach also was falling into Alzheimer's, so I only got to work with her for about a year. Between her and the last coach I worked with, someone from Eastman who moved to FL, I made about as much progress in two years as I had in the previous FIVE years with my first coach. (Evelyn - the very famous coach with Alzheimer's - was the coach of my first coach, too. She should have passed me off to Evelyn years before she actually did. Although, one reason she didn't, aside from having a little showpiece student, was that Evelyn was only in our area for half the year, and spent the rest of the year in upstate NY.)