Word: toscanini
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Roman music lovers saw in a sudden rapid shifting of Italian orchestra directors the coordinating influence of Mussolini from whose dictation not even Italian artists are exempt. Arturo Toscanini, for years illustriously inseparable from La Scala in Milan, will reputedly conduct this winter at Costanza Opera in Rome. At La Scala it is whispered that the baton of Bernardino Molinari will flicker. Neapolitans, devotees of the famed San Carlos Opera will hail as their chief conductor, this winter, Tullio Serafin, long a brilliant conductor for the Metropolitan Opera of Manhattan. Pietro Mascagni will go to the Augustep, chief concert hall...
...played in Manhattan and a critic there was writing, "Wherever a fiddle scrapes, his songs are heard. . . ." Of Maestro Fortune Gallo shouting, "I tell you my name is Fortune. . . . I tell you opera will pay. . . ." Of Signer Serafin imposing his electricity on the wavering scores of Metropolitan experiments. ... Of Toscanini throwing down his cello in the Opera House in Rio de Janeiro one night in 1886 to conduct Aida by heart and win fame thereby. . . . But most of all, since his name occurred most often, one thought of Pietro Mascagni, and the curious stories that are told about this baker...
Arturo wields the baton, Benito the thunderbolt. Arturo Toscanini, most famed of Italian opera conductors, has refused for three successive years to allow his orchestra at the great Milan opera house, La Scala, to play "Giovanezza," the Fascist hymn. To the ears of Benito Mussolini reports have come that Toscanini has defended his refusal as follows: "Never! I refuse to turn La Scala into a market place for Fascist demonstrations. They have the square outside and also the Galleria nearby for that, but while I conduct the Scala orchestra, it will remain the home of opera and never will...
...Never will my feet cross the threshold of La Scala until Toscanini, the anti-Fascist, goes from there. How dare he refuse to play 'Giovanezza...
...Toscanini continued to refuse. To the flustered directors he cried: "I will conduct 'Giovanezza' never and for nobody...