Toscanini Service

When Siegfried Wagner last month followed his mother Frau Cosima (TIME, April 14) to a lingering death (TIME, Aug. 11) opera lovers all over the world wondered anxiously on whose shoulders would fall direction of Bayreuth's Wagner festivals. To his widow Siegfried willed complete musical, artistic, and financial charge. But Widow Wagner has a young family to rear. A strong man was needed, a genius to bring back the glory to Bayreuth.

Last week it appeared that Widow Wagner found him. He was a bushy haired little Italian with a fierce mustache, conductor of New York's Philharmonic-Symphony, the same Arturo Toscanini whose electric renditions of Tannhaeuser and Tristan this summer brought acclaim as has been bestowed on no Bayreuth conductor since the War (TIME, Aug. 4).

In Frau Cosima's declining years when she directed the festivals from her sick bed at Villa Wahnfried, the operas were poorly cast, scenery was incongruous, costumes ridiculous. Most unpardonable, the music was mechanically, often indifferently rendered. German critics stayed away from Bayreuth, spoke slightingly of it, or worse, ignored it completely.

Toscanini's debut was like a breath of warm invigorating spring blowing from his sunny Milan through the bleak Cosimaridden atmosphere of the Sacred Hill. His name and fame hung out the "Ausverkauft" (sold-out) sign in the Festspielhaus long before the first performance. His brilliant Tannhaeusers and sublime Tristans outshone even the Parsifals of so great an oldtime Wagnerian as Karl Muck whose conducting has been one of the few bright spots of recent festivals. The German orchestra with which Toscanini worked, whose language he did not know, grumbled at first over the almost superhuman demands he made upon them. Later they cheered him. Conductor Muck was mentioned for the vacant post, but most considered Widow Wagner's choice as inevitable. Muck is 71, Toscanini 63, but the difference in musical fire, vision, power and energy of the two maestros is far greater than the difference of eight years.

Ten thousand tourists this summer thronged the Festspielhaus (1,000 from the U. S.), 35,500 tickets were sold, $250,000 came through the box-office wicket, greater takings than Bayreuth has known in many a year. Conservative estimates placed total money spent there by opera-lovers at half a million.

Toscanini's elevation would mark a final rupture with his longtime stronghold at Milan, rickety old La Scala. Henceforth Manhattan will engage his winters, Bayreuth his summers. Ructions with Italy's lantern-jawed dictator have expatriated him. In the recent Philharmonic triumph in Italy Mussolini attended none of the concerts, nor did he send any telegrams of congratulations.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.