Rival Tours

The audience were disgusted, and--being Brazilian--showed it. Smarting under their boos and hoots, the conductor of the Italian opera troupe stamped out of the theatre in Rio de Janeiro. To carry on the performance, the orchestra as one man boosted a 19109-year-old cellist to the conductor's stand. He led his men through the whole opera (Aida) from memory. That performance, 54 years ago, was Conductor Arturo Toscanini's first. Last week white-haired Maestro Toscanini made ready to play his first return engagement in Rio. With the NBC Symphony he sailed on a South American tour, to play four concerts in Rio, two in Sao Paulo, eight in Buenos Aires, two in Montevideo.

NBC expects to make no money on its prestigious tour, but last fortnight, within six hours after ticket sales began, all the concerts were sold out. To one U. S. maestro, this was not unmixed good news. Platinum-mopped Leopold Stokowski began raising an "All American Youth Orchestra" last winter, planned also to make a South American tour--for good will. Since last spring, Stokowski has professed to be undaunted by Toscanini's rival junket, has apparently not been bothered by the prospect that South Americans, always sensitive to any sort of patronizing from the North, might be averse to the good will of a band of U. S. youngsters.

Last week, chins up, the Stokowski outfit insisted that its South American tour would begin in mid-July. Busy preparing for the trip, Mr. Stokowski was up to his waist in eager musical youngsters. With the cooperation of the National Youth Administration, Stokowski has held auditions in a dozen cities, attracting youths from surrounding States. Some 10,000 boys and girls, aged 16 to 25, applied for jobs in the 109-piece orchestra. The 500 who survived preliminary weedings played before Stokowski, who judged them for personality, individuality, docility under a conductor. Stokowski would like to have every State represented in his orchestra, but he will not sacrifice musical perfection to geographical neatness. Said he last week in Washington, with calm assurance and bad grammar: "You've never heard an orchestra like this one's going to be."

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