Word: halasz
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...waiting music" that introduces the third act of Madame Butterfly. In the pit of Chicago's Civic Opera House, Conductor Laszlo Halasz turned to the first-violin section of his New York City Opera Company orchestra to urge them on. Few in the audience noticed what happened next, but it made the most controversial musical mystery of the week...
...fact was that astonished young (28) Concertmaster Alfred Bruening caught a flying baton in the face. The mystery: Did the baton just slip out of Halasz's hand, as Halasz claimed, or did he hurl it, straight and true as a javelin, as the outraged concertmaster afterward charged...
There were partisans in the orchestra to support each hypothesis. But James Caesar Petrillo, czar of the mighty American Federation of Musicians, rushed to the concertmaster's corner. "The way I understand it," steamed Petrillo, "things weren't going so good, so [Halasz] throws the baton in this kid's face ... If Halasz is looking for trouble he's going to get it-especially in Chicago." Petrillo stoked his boiler until just before curtain time for the next performance, and then, with the audience in their seats for Carmen, ordered the musicians...
...part of the loving, pleasure-mad, 18th Century Manon. What she lacked in artfulness, her gallant and unhappy lover made up in charm and ardor. As the Chevalier des Grieux, young (27) Philadelphia-born Tenor David Poleri turned out to be one of the finds of the season. Laszlo Halasz, director of City Opera, heard Poleri last fall on a Chicago radio show. Handsome Poleri sang Des Grieux as if he had learned it straight from Caruso; his voice, less powerful and assured, is sweeter, lighter in color. He acted his part as if he were born...
...shrewd Director Halasz picked Manon? Partly because, under Conductor Morel, he had "the strongest French wing in the U.S. To be brutally frank," saic Halasz, there was another, equally good reason: "The Met didn't do very much with the French repertory this season...