Page 31 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Monday 27 March 2017
Toscanini’s musical and anti-Fascist legacy remembered

sary of Toscanini’s birth. endured due to the musi- opera singers. He also had
The Saturday night con- cal rigor he imposed on or- the lights turned down dur-
cert was part of a series chestras and the fact that ing performances and de-
of celebrations and com- he was one of the first ma- manded silence from the
memorations planned jor conductors whose work audience, etiquette that is
across Italy to honor one of was both recorded and now the norm but then was
the 20th century’s most en- broadcast live, Sachs said. a revolution, according to
during conductors, a man During his lifetime, Toscani- Toscanini expert Franco
who defied Fascist leader ni enjoyed renown around Pulcini, who collaborated
Benito Mussolini, brought the world but particularly in on the La Scala exhibit.
discipline and decorum to his native Italy, where his fo- By 1929, he’d had enough
La Scala and popularized cus was opera, and in the of fighting with theater
symphonic orchestral mu- United States, the second directors over the expen-
In this photo taken on Tuesday, March 21, 2017, a guest ges- sic in the United States. home where he devoted sive staging of operas and
tures during the unveiling of the exhibition on Italian musician Unlike composers whose his career to broadcasting decided to focus on sym-
and composer Arturo Toscanini, at La Scala opera theater in symphonic music. phonic work. He shifted his
Milan, Italy. La Scala also dedicated to Toscanini a tribute con- works can be played and
cert marking the 150th anniversary of Toscanini’s March 25, 1867 reinterpreted over time, “In 1935, Time magazine career to the United States,
birth. the contribution of con- published a statistic that 9 where he was conducting
(AP Photo/Luca Bruno) ductors “is written in water million Americans listened the New York Philharmonic
in a certain sense,” said to his broadcast of the New Orchestra at the time and
Harvey Sachs, a Toscanini York Philharmonic each had previously conducted
COLLEEN BARRY it was a playful touch when biographer who helped week,” Sachs said. “That the Metropolitan Opera.
Associated Press one of the maestro’s musi- curate an exhibit on the was 7 percent of the popu- “He realized that moving to
MILAN (AP) — Italian con- cal heirs included a Verdi conductor at La Scala’s lation of the United States, the United States by con-
ductor Arturo Toscanini’s encore during a tribute museum that runs through adults and children, at that ducting symphonic music,
legacies included abolish- at the Milan opera house June 4. time. That would be like 22 he had a much bigger au-
ing encores at La Scala. So marking the 150th anniver- But Toscanini’s fame has million people tuning into dience for classical music,”
a broadcast of symphonic Pulcini said.
music. It is almost unthink- He went back and forth be-
able today.”He worked at tween Italy and the United
La Scala both as principal States until his anti-Fascist
conductor, for a decade political views — which in-
from 1898, and musical di- cluded refusing to conduct
rector in the 1920s, and is the Fascist anthem — got
credited with improving the him into trouble with Musso-
discipline of musicians, ex- lini, and his passport was re-
panding the repertoire and voked.In 1938, he went into
improving the behavior of self-exile in the U.S., where
unruly audience members. a year earlier he had taken
It was Toscanini who in- the helm of the NBC Sym-
stalled an orchestra pit to phony Orchestra that was
help balance the sound created for him. He contin-
of the musicians with the ued there for 17 years.q