Word: chotzinoff
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However, I believe it is universally agreed and accepted that the Op-Ed page was the brainchild of World Executive Editor Herbert Bayard Swope, who placed the likes of Heywood Broun, Franklin P. Adams, Alec Woollcott, Laurence Stallings, Harry Hansen, Samuel Chotzinoff and many other greats on that page, including Cartoonist Rollin Kirby...
Died. Samuel Chotzinoff, 74, NBC's classical-music chief since 1941, who lured his good friend Arturo Toscanini back from Italy to conduct for NBC, became what some called "vice president for Toscanini," stayed on after the maestro retired to create topflight TV opera, commissioned Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, started Leontyne Price on her way to stardom; of heart disease; in Manhattan...
Seven years ago, NBC had no opera company and wanted none. Sponsors considered TV opera poison to listener ratings. Then in 1949 a Czech-born conductor named Peter Herman Adler got together with NBC's General Music Director Samual Chotzinoff. The reason the ordinary listener did not appreciate opera, they argued, was that he could not understand the words and the stilted acting made the whole thing seem ridiculous. "If we don't understand the singer's words," says Adler, "we cannot know whether he acts or even sings in accordance with them. And the moment...
Vocal Sacrifice. Adler and Chotzinoff rounded up a group of young singers, among them one Mario Lanza, schooled them in acting, had them rehearse English versions of La Boheme and Figaro. As Adler tells it, one night he "trapped" RCA Boss General Sarnoff at a dinner party, and hustled out his little group to sing. When the music ended. Sarnoff looked accusingly at Adler, then sighed: "O.K., put them on the air." Adler & Co. went on the air in 1949, have been on ever since...
Stars were accustomed to sauntering in to sing their parts through, then departing while the rest of the cast rehearsed. With Adler and Chotzinoff they found they were expected to rehearse from 10 in the morning until 6 at night with the whole company, and for days on end. Adler insisted on good acting, unhesitatingly sacrificed some voice quality for it. "We will not take someone who weighs 400 Ibs. simply because she can sing well. We will instead take a voice that is not quite so good, provided the singer looks the part...