Arturo Toscanini (; Italian: [arˈtuːro toskaˈniːni]; March 25, 1867 – January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, Toscanini was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his eidetic memory. He was at various times the music director of La Scala in Milan and the New York Philharmonic. Later in his career, he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937–1954), and this led to his becoming a household name, especially in the United States, through his radio and television broadcasts and many recordings of the operatic and symphonic repertoire.
Toscanini was born in Parma, Emilia-Romagna. His father was a tailor. He won a scholarship to the Parma Conservatory, where he studied the cello. Living conditions at the conservatory were harsh and strict. For example, the menu at the conservatory consisted almost entirely of fish; in his later years, Toscanini steadfastly refused to eat anything that came from the sea.
He joined the orchestra of an Italian opera company organized by Claudio Rossi and Carlo Superti as principal cellist, with which he toured Brazil in 1886. After performing in São Paulo, the locally hired conductor, Leopoldo Miguez relinquished the post a few hours before the performance of Aida in Rio de Janeiro on June 25, telling the newspapers that his decision had been caused by the behavior of the orchestra, who apparently thought that Miguez was inadequate to conduct opera (reviews of his performance in São Paulo reflected the orchestra's sentiment). Desperate, Superti (who was also a conductor), attempted to take Miguez's place as conductor for the performance. But the public, who believed that Miguez's resignation had been caused by prejudice on behalf of the Italians against Brazilian artists, booed Superti so violently that he couldn't even give the signal for the orchestra to start playing. Superti eventually left the podium and got onstage with Rossi (his fellow impresario) to try and calm the public by explaining the situation. He was pretty much ignored and the booing got worse. When it seemed that the performance was destined to be a fiasco, the then 19 year-old Toscanini got up from his seat in the orchestra, walked over to the conductor's podium and signaled for the orchestra to begin playing. The public, surprised by the young man's bold move, stopped booing, and Toscanini began conducting. He ended up conducting the entire opera by memory.
The public was taken by surprise, at first by the youth, charisma and sheer intensity of this unknown conductor, then by his solid musicianship. The result was astounding acclaim. For the rest of that season, Toscanini conducted 18 operas, each one an absolute success. Thus began his career as a conductor, at age 19.
Upon returning to Italy, Toscanini set out on a dual path. He continued to conduct, his first appearance in Italy being at the Teatro Carignano in Turin, on November 4, 1886, in the world premiere of the revised version of Alfredo Catalani's Edmea (it had its premiere in its original form at La Scala, Milan, on February 27, of that year). This was the beginning of Toscanini's lifelong friendship and championing of Catalani; he even named his first daughter Wally after the heroine of Catalani's opera La Wally. He also returned to his chair in the cello section, and participated as cellist in the world premiere of Verdi's Otello (La Scala, Milan, 1887) under the composer's supervision.
Verdi, who habitually complained that conductors never seemed interested in directing his scores the way he had written them, was impressed by reports from Arrigo Boito about Toscanini's ability to interpret his scores. The composer was also impressed when Toscanini consulted him personally about Verdi's Te Deum, suggesting an allargando where it was not set out in the score. Verdi said that he had left it out for fear that "certain interpreters would have exaggerated the marking".
National and international fame
Gradually, Toscanini's reputation as an operatic conductor of unusual authority and skill supplanted his cello career. In the following decade, he consolidated his career in Italy, entrusted with the world premieres of Puccini's La bohème and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. In 1896, Toscanini conducted his first symphonic concert (in Turin, with works by Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner). He exhibited a considerable capacity for hard work, conducting 43 concerts in Turin in 1898. By 1898, Toscanini was Principal Conductor at La Scala, where he remained until 1908, returning as Music Director, from 1921 to 1929.
In December 1920, he brought the La Scala Orchestra to the United States on a concert tour during which time he made his first recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden, New Jersey.
In 1908, Toscanini became principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, arriving with Giulio Gatti-Casazza who left La Scala to assume the post as the Met's general manager. During Toscanini's seven seasons at the Met (1908–1915), he made several reforms and set many standards in opera production and performance which are still in practice today. At the end of his final season with the Metropolitan Opera in May 1915, Toscanini was set to return to Europe aboard the doomed RMS Lusitania, but instead cut his concert schedule short and left a week early, aboard the Italian liner Duca degli Abruzzi. Toscanini conducted the New York Philharmonic from 1926 until 1936; he toured Europe with the Philharmonic in 1930. At each performance, he and the orchestra were acclaimed by both critics and audiences. Toscanini was the first non-German conductor to appear at Bayreuth (1930–1931), and the New York Philharmonic was the first non-German orchestra to play there.
In the 1930s, he conducted at the Salzburg Festival (1934–1937), as well as the 1936 inaugural concert of the Palestine Orchestra (later renamed the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra) in Tel Aviv, later conducting them in Jerusalem, Haifa, Cairo and Alexandria. During his engagement with the New York Philharmonic, his concert master was Hans Lange, the son of the last Master of the Sultan's Music in Istanbul, who, later, became conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the founder of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra as a professional ensemble.
During his career as an opera conductor, Toscanini collaborated with such artists as Enrico Caruso, Feodor Chaliapin, Ezio Pinza, Giovanni Martinelli, Geraldine Farrar and Aureliano Pertile.
Departure from Italy to the United States
In 1919, Toscanini unsuccessfully ran on the Fascist ticket for a minor municipal office in Milan. (The Fascist Party was not openly authoritarian at that time.) He had been called "the greatest conductor in the world" by Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Toscanini had already become disillusioned with Fascism before the October 1922 March on Rome and repeatedly defied the Italian dictator. He refused to display Mussolini's photograph or conduct the Fascist anthem Giovinezza at La Scala. He raged to a friend, "If I were capable of killing a man, I would kill Mussolini."
At a memorial concert for Italian composer Giuseppe Martucci on May 14, 1931, at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Toscanini was ordered to begin by playing Giovinezza, but he flatly refused, despite the presence of fascist communications minister Costanzo Ciano in the audience. Afterwards, he was, in his own words, "attacked, injured and repeatedly hit in the face" by a group of Blackshirts. Mussolini, incensed by the conductor's refusal, had his phone tapped, placed him under constant surveillance, and confiscated his passport. His passport was returned only after a world outcry over Toscanini's treatment. Upon the outbreak of World War II, Toscanini left Italy. He returned in 1946 to conduct a concert for the opening of the restored La Scala Opera House, which was heavily damaged by bombing during the war.