Word: toscaninis
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...home recordings of the rehearsal, to check the orchestral balance. He allows radio engineers no easy tricks either. In La Traviata, a chorus is supposed to approach from afar. A simple way to get the radio effect was to have the chorus stand still and sing with increasing volume; Toscanini insisted that the chorus go off stage, approach gradually...
Last week, it was announced that Toscanini will shortly record two or more operas (probably La Traviata and La Boheme). If RCA Victor can beat Columbia Records to the draw (Columbia last month signed a five-year contract with the Metropolitan Opera), Toscanini's will be the first full-length opera ever recorded...
Nearing 80, Toscanini eats little, sleeps little (four or five hours), goes to Broadway musicals like Annie Get Your Gun but not on opening night, stays away from places where he is likely to be recognized and fussed over. He is driven to rehearsals by a chauffeur in a Cadillac from his 22-room house in suburban Riverdale where he lives with his wife, Carla, and two servants. At home, he is fascinated by his television set, on which he recently saw his first prize fight. He dreams of traveling by rocket ship or atomic power...
...December, after bouncing out of a well-heated studio into windy Rockefeller Plaza without coat or hat, Toscanini caught a cold. He insisted, despite a fever, on conducting his Sunday broadcast. Against his wishes, a doctor was called, and bundled the Maestro into bed. The doctor made Toscanini cancel his scheduled flight to Milan to open the La Scala opera season. Toscanini is fatalistic about death-he believes he will probably be killed in an accident-and scorns such medical precautions. Says he: "If you don't want to be sick, you don't have to be sick...
...they were guided by the critics at all, record-buyers frequently found the critics disagreeing. Last week, for the first time, five U.S. music critics* sang in harmony. For a magazine called the Review of Recorded Music they picked the year's best classical recordings. Only Conductor Arturo Toscanini (see above) won two ribbons. The critics' choices...