Word: toscas
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...been prophesying a speedy decline for the sentimental operas of the late Giacomo Puccini. Sensible critics,*however, have often pointed out that, though they may be bathetic, Puccini's operas are masterpieces of musical stagecraft, shaped by one of the surest hands that ever penned an aria. Meanwhile Tosca, La Boheme, and Madame Butterfly have been played incessantly wherever opera is given. During his lifetime, Composer Puccini made a fortune from them-a rare feat for a composer of serious music-and today they are still tops on the list of operatic bestsellers...
Last week, during a performance of Tosca, pandemonium broke loose in Chicago's Civic Opera House. Excited operagoers pounded the floor, stood on their seats and yelled frantic approval. Conductor Moranzoni tried to get the perform-ance going again, was stopped by a gusty chorus of "boos." For more than five minutes the demonstration continued. Finally the cause of it, a broad-shouldered, lusty-looking Italian tenor, Galliano Masini, repeated "E lucevan le stelle." And the opera was allowed...
...Livornese macaroni maker, 34-year-old Masini worked once as a stevedore, then as a mechanic, was sent to Milan by admiring townsmen. He claims that he never took a singing lesson, that the Milanese taught him only repertory. He made a debut in Livorno (Tosca) in 1928 and has sung since at La Scala and other leading European opera-houses...
Chicago critics who had described Masini's U. S. debut in Lucia di Lammermoor last month, and subsequent appearances in La Gioconda and Tosca as "one long crescendo of excitement," now spoke of him unhesitatingly as "another Caruso." While Chicago music-lovers last week were congratulating each other on this sensation of the musical season, Tenor Masini was being watched by hawk-eyed impresarios from coast to coast...
...such notables as Artur Rodzinski, John Barbirolli, Fritz Reiner. Francesco Sain. Eugene Goossens will conduct the world premiere of his Don Juan of Manara, an opera he wrote to the late Arnold Bennett's libretto. Lawrence Tibbett will have the title role, after making his European debut in Tosca...