Word: ballo
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Metropolitan Opera (Sat. 2 p.m., ABC). Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera, with Peerce, Merrill, Anderson, Peters...
...still news when a Negro stars in grand opera, even in a role calling for a dark skin. Marian Anderson's Metropolitan Opera debut as the Negro Ulrica, in Un Ballo in Maschera (TIME, Jan. 17), made fortissimo headlines, and this week Baritone Robert McFerrin is causing another stir at the Met by singing the Ethiopian king Amonasro in Aida. The NBC Opera Theater was even bolder: this week it cast Leontyne Price, 26, as the Italian opera singer Tosca...
...name was Anna Anderson. As a girl, her daughter dreamed of singing in this great gilt and plush house. Now, at 52, Contralto Marian Anderson was realizing the dream. The first Negro singer to appear at the Metropolitan, she was making her debut in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera...
...Frowns. The first day's session at Carnegie Hall began as the conductor nervously walked to his podium. The orchestra's applause calmed him down, and in a flash he called, "Duetto!" Soprano Herva Nelli and Tenor Jan Peerce began singing the last-act duet from Un Ballo in Maschera. Here & there the maestro stopped to shout a fiery "Vergogna!" or "Madonna mia!" and the group diligently began again. Finally, everybody managed to get through the duet according to Toscanini's demands, and the piece was recorded...
...both rehearsals and the two-part broadcasts of Ballo last week and this week, the maestro unobtrusively slipped on his spectacles just before he administered the downbeat. But although his figure was bent with age, it still bent flexibly with the music. His left hand, which he sometimes used to hold the podium rail, stiffly waved, patted and sliced the air while the world's most expressive baton all but drew pictures of the sounds he wanted. The orchestra played its heart out, and the soloists and chorus outdid themselves, actually made the old war horse sound like...