Word: wagnerian
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...Baltimore, at the head of Washington's National Symphony, Maestro McArthur made his first appearance in the East. Behind him was a record of big-time symphony and opera conducting in Sydney, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago. A mere sprig of 32, he had already conducted more Wagnerian opera than many a veteran, had even been mentioned as a candidate for Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House, where no U. S.-born maestro has ever held a job. Baltimore critics liked his version of Wagner, his lacy, intricate French scores by Ravel and Debussy, declared him the "most imagina...
...into a row with Manhattan's Met because it refused to engage him for her Tristans and Götterdämmerungs (TIME, Jan. 29). At the San Francisco and Chicago Operas she got her way, and McArthur was soon making himself a place among leading U. S. Wagnerian conductors. Today, Conductor McArthur gives all the credit for his success to Soprano Flagstad. Says she: "I wouldn't do this if I didn't think Edwin could deliver the goods...
...Mencken's life is that he was not well taught in music. "Lady music teachers . . . wrecked my technic and debauched my taste." He still likes to pound the piano but, "born with an intense distaste for vocal music ... to this day think of even the most gifted Wagnerian soprano as no more than a blimp fitted with a calliope." As for Karl Czerny, standard nightmare of every child's piano lessons: "So late as 1930, being in Vienna, I visited and desecrated his grave...
Heldentenor. Lauritz Melchior is not a natural tenor. Jealous Italians refer to him sniffily as a misplaced baritone. Actually, he is an authentic example of a very rare type of singer: the true Wagnerian Heldentenor (heroic tenor). Most tenors have fairly light voices: their honey-voiced wailing is orchestrated to an accompaniment that will not drown them out. But Wagner had no use for such lightweights: the true Heldentenor must be able to out-boom a phalanx of trombones. Richard Wagner's heroes are strenuous fellows, who would willingly break a blood vessel to get to Walhalla, and Wagner...
...Melchior got his first big chance singing Wagnerian roles at London's Covent Garden, six years later moved on to Bayreuth and Munich, where he was rated one of the finest German-style tenors of the day. One sunny afternoon in 1926 he made his debut at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House. That evening, ill-starred Kansas City Soprano Marion Talley made hers. In the storm and shuffle of publicity that attended Soprano Talley's debut, Melchior was practically overlooked. One critic described his acting as "barely more than awkward." But Melchior stayed on. Not long afterward...