Word: toscanini
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Anne got her mother on the phone in Aurora, Ill., and announced importantly: "Mother, I have something to tell you. If you will tune in on February 3, you will hear Anne McKnight singing in opera under Toscanini...
Then she told how it all happened. Toscanini, who had conducted the world premiere of Puccini's La Bohème in Turin in 1896, was to perform it again, on its 50th anniversary, over NBC. He had picked the Met's Licia Albanese for Mimi, Jan Peerce for Rodolfo. For the second feminine lead (Musetta) he had tried out 30 women, was satisfied with none. Then Met Conductor Wilfred Pelletier, who teaches at Manhattan's Juilliard School of Music, suggested a 20-year-old, plump, black-haired pupil of his, who so far had sung only...
...Toscanini played the piano, and sang along with her. His only comment was: "Your Italian is very funny"-but next day he signed her up. An NBC official asked Anne what fee she would charge. Said she incredulously, "Am I going to be paid...
Rossini: Overtures (NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini conducting; Victor, 8 sides). Italy's great kettledrum-banging composer is heard with appropriate thunder on unbreakable plastic records, which catch the crescendos without the mushiness of ordinary records. Best is Toscanini's job on La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie). Also in Victor's second plastic album are the overtures to The Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola (Cinderella) and Il Signor Bruschino. Performance : excellent...
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B Flat Major (Rudolf Serkin and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting; Columbia, 12 sides). A pretentious old warhorse in new harness. Serkin plays it louder but not better than Horowitz did with Father-in-Law Toscanini in Victor's 1941 recording. Performance: fair...