Word: otello
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Giuseppe Verdi, a formidable old man in his 70s, looked sternly down on the four cellists. In rehearsal for the first performance of his new opera, Otello, the La Scala orchestra had just reached the important cello passage in the first act. The second cellist, a 19-year-old boy, could barely be heard. The composer demanded to know his name. "Toscanini," he was told. Toscanini had played the passage exactly as it was marked-pppp. Patiently, Verdi explained that the fault was his own: he really intended only pianissimo, and had exaggerated his directions to make sure that they...
...alpaca choke-collar coat, that set off the whiteness of his hair and mustache-the little cellist himself was stopping other cellists, screaming at violinists, and cajoling a 50-voice chorus. He was rehearsing one of the year's memorable musical events-a broadcast of the entire opera Otello, in two Saturday broadcasts, an hour and a quarter each. "This Is Desdemona." For weeks the Maestro had been getting set for his one opera broadcast of the year. He had hand-picked his singers, rehearsed them relentlessly in his dressing room, accompanying them on the piano himself. There were...
Screamed tough, wiry Communist Leader Otello Barbi: "You cornacchiacce, you dirty black ravens, you always turn everything into an instrument of propaganda in your favor. You just want all poor to be forced to sign on to the parish list." Salvatore Gallo, a stocky Christian Democrat, rose from his café table in the square: "You volponaccio rosso, you sly red fox, you know very well that the parish helps all the poor. It's only that you want the poor to be forced to come to you Communists." Barbi rushed up: "You lying cornacchia, we think only...
Victor, with an eye to the big spenders, brought out a "Heritage Series" of wheezing reissues from opera's so-called "Golden Age" at $3.50 a disc (with gold labels). Pressed from musty masters are Soprano Frances Alda's gracefully sung Willow Song and Ave Maria from Otello (recorded in 1910) and Baritone Mario Ancona's Eri tu from The Masked Ball (1907). Even scratchier is Luisa Tetrazzini's carelessly sung Voi che sapete from The Marriage of Figaro (1908). Enrico Caruso's faltering Rachel, quand du seigneur, from La Juive, was recorded...
...Opera (Sun. 7 p.m., Mutual). Metropolitan Opera Basso Norman Cordon and Soprano Barbara Troxell in arias from Lohengrin, Faust and Otello...