Word: toscaninis
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Nervous Nelli One man who was always sure about Soprano Herva Nelli's voice was Arturo Toscanini. The first time he heard her sing he said, "There is my Desdemona," and gave her the role in his 1947 Otello. Some objected that Italian-born Nelli had sung only in minor-league opera in the U.S., and that she had not been heard by many others. "If she hasn't," said Toscanini, "she will be now." But up to last week, Herva Nelli's U.S. reputation was based on what she could do with the Maestro conducting...
...qualm, despite the fact that, with diplomats overflowing the opera house for the Japanese Peace Treaty, early rehearsals had to be held in an old downtown theater. The only thing that gave her the slightest pause was a feeling that Conductor Fausto Cleva might not do things exactly Toscanini's way. But when the big moment came, Cleva did just fine ("He was perfect"), and Soprano Nelli covered herself with glory too, singing in a voice that was sweet and sure. Even the critics joined in the prolonged applause...
...romantic stuff of Verdi and Puccini, found Stravinsky's music a bit flat, or too intellectual, for opera. The sets were criticized as second-rate and rather un-English, and the first-night conducting, which was handled by Stravinsky himself, as distinctly not the work of a Toscanini. But the critics agreed that The Rake's Progress was a solid success, one of the outstanding 'musical works of the decade, a model of form and craftsmanship...
Died. Carla de Martini Toscanini, 73, wife of the famed conductor and one of the musical world's "most important second fiddles," who for 54 selfless years cut the Maestro's hair, cooked for him, attended to all the daily drudgeries which he hated; of a heart attack; in Milan, Italy...
...Maestro was playing the piano when the telephone rang. He was so absorbed in the Beethoven concerto that he positively refused to recognize this foreign noise-but for me it was like trying to ignore a fire siren. Toscanini kept right on playing, and I was certainly going to continue as long as he did, but I could feel the pressure, the temperature rising. Any second, something had to explode...