Word: toscaninis
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...that was left was the stage and four walls. Last week La Scala had been put back together again (at a cost of $350,000 that a lot of Italians felt could have been better spent on bread and shelter). To its reconstructed podium stepped little, white-haired Arturo Toscanini, 79, who had scored some of his greatest triumphs there...
...Toscanini, voluntary exile from Italy since 1938, had flown to Italy at his own expense, to conduct six concerts without pay. He had obviously been homesick for his native land, but when he got to his family home in the green Po Valley, he soon seemed homesick for the U.S. He sighed to friends of New York's climate and California's wines, and whispered wistfully over a dish of spaghetti: "But you should taste the spaghetti in the United States...
...When Toscanini entered rebuilt La Scala for the first time, he clapped his hands from the center of the stage, and an echo came loudly from the rebuilt dome. "Yes," the maestro said, "it is the same." The no-piece orchestra was not quite the same at first; Toscanini drilled them firmly, but with none of his usual wrathful outbursts. On opening night they played as they had not for years. Toscanini had chosen an all-Italian program (Rossini, Verdi, Puccini) of the kind of kettledrum-banging bravado that he likes. When he played Verdi's Te Deum...
Most of the 3,600 people in the audience were U.S. or British officials, or rich Italians who had paid scalpers up to $100 a seat. But outside, in the public squares, more than 10,000 Milanese heard Toscanini's music over loudspeakers, stayed to argue about it for most of the night. Many of them wanted for bread; but for a night they had their circus...
...Toscanini: Hymn of the Nations. Film debut of the greatest living musician (TIME, April...