56
MUSICAL COURIER	March 29, 1923
SGALA, UNDER TOSCANINI, HAS A MIRACULOUS RISE
Tyrant and Hero, He Has Created Finest Ensemble in Europe Within a Year—Fascism and Music—Italian Première of
Charpentier’s Louise
best that have ever existed. The orchestra, as it is today, I do not hesitate to place at the very top of the list of all those I have heard within the last five years. Its tone is of marvelous, ravishing beauty; its precision and finesse of shading second to none—not excepting the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The chorus as nearly equals it as a chorus can; it sings and acts with a beauty, grace and certainty that can hardly be surpassed. Even the stage management, now in the hands of Giovacchino Forzano, Puccini’s librettist, is excellent and quite on a par with the leading theaters of Germany. The scenery, though new, is still old-fashioned, it is true; but the lighting and all the technical apparatus and management on the first order.
Engineer Albertini, the technical director, very courteously
led us through the mazes of the reconstructed stage from the floor to the roof, raised eight meters above its original height. The very latest lighting appliances and shifting apparatus, largely imported from Germany, including two vaulted horizons, were opened to our gaping eyes, and I believe there is hardly a stage in the world that boasts of so formidable an array of illusionary devices as this. The whole installation, with its myriad electric levers and communications, its most modern and responsive instruments, seems to have been guided by a mechanical genius of no mean order.
With such an apparatus, such a house (its acoustics are famous the world over) and such artistic chiefs the miracle of the Scala becomes somewhat more comprehensible. The three performances I was privileged to hear, under three different conductors, nevertheless filled me with wonder. There was Manon Lescaut, recently revived as the first Puccini work at the new Scala, under Franco Ghione, a beautifully staged, well-rounded performance with big dramatic moments, in which Juanita Carraccioli displayed her beautiful lyric soprano and charming presence. There was a Barber of Seville such as I have rarely heard before, under Francesco Guarnieri, with Toti Dalmonte as Rosina and Stracciari as the Barber. And finally there was the
oSANINA Concert Pianist
H	AVAILABLE FOR SEASON 1923-24
E Mgt.: SUPREME CONCERT MANAGEMENT, 1525 Aeolian Hall, New York
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Milan. February 27.—As you arrive in the Central Station of Milan, you and your baggage are scrutinized by a handsome, tall young man in black shirt and cap, with a huge Fascists emblem and the Italian colors embroidered in silk upon his heart. He is the symbol of the new order in Italy. What a change! Two years ago Italy was in a state of comparative chaos. Milan especially was all but swamped by a wave of red, and the red flag hung from the window of the Municipio itself. Today there is nothing red in Milan but the taxicabs; and the popular color, as at funerals, is black.
But this is not a funeral. Whatever one may think of the Fascista movement—and very few people outside of Italy really understand what it is—it certainly is accepted with joy. Mussolini is a real hero, and he stands for action and for efficiency. He is brushing away the cobwebs and the barnacles on the ship of state, and is giving the young people a chance. Hence the young people are enthusiastic.
Said one of them coming this way on the train :	“Ha ! you
haven’t been in Italy for a year?
Wait’ll you see! Italy is fine now. Safe; clean, trains run on time; everything is fine. See?—” and pointed with pride to the enamel emblem on his lapel—the Italian colors with the fasces on the white.
Well, his youthful enthusiasm led him to exaggerate things.
Trains are not as infallible and as clean as all that. But there is certainly more order than before, and punctuality in some places is a regular fetich. One of these places is the Scala. The Scala, too, has its Mussolini and his name is Toscanini. Toscanini, like Mussolini, rules with an iron hand, and he, too, is a hero. His picture, like Mussolini’s, is displayed in the shops. No name is more frequently mentioned than his, and when it is mentioned it is with enthusiasm and awe.
When we arrived the Scala was closed for three days. Why?
Because Toscanini was rehearsing, day and night, for a première. We wanted to see Sig. Scandiani, the general director. He was busy. With whom? Toscanini. All day. "Nothing matters, nobody counts here but Mr. Toscanini,” said the secretary.. “We are all here to serve him—that’s all.”
When we did see Director Scandiani, however, we were received with the same old Italian courtesy. The busiest men always have time. He told us yi the work at the Scala, of the magnificent record of the first year and a half, with great modesty. Within a year the Scala has become, not the first theater of Italy, but in Europe. Nowhere in Europe today can one hear opera . done as it is done here. When one considers the state of opera in Italy two years ago, this seems a miracle. And this miracle has been wrought by one man. Is it a wonder that he is a hero, then?
The Musical Courier has recorded the history of the scheme that has brought the Scala to new life. Eight millions of lire were raised among the citizens of Milan for the reconstruction fund. The names of the principal donors are engraved on marble on the lobby walls. These donors appoint two of the nine members of the managing board. Five are appointed by the city of Milan and the remaining two by the box proprietors. In the course of nine years the Scala is going to buy back its boxes from these hereditary owners, at an equitable price already fixed. Meantime they get the interest on this sum, but must pay for their seats, if they use them, as everyone else. A decisive break with tradition, this !
On this basis the Scala could start out with a fairly clean bill of health. It acquired, besides, a subvention that is not inconsiderable : every theater within the district, every motion picture house, every race course, must pay a ticket tax for the support of the Scala. But the greatest support comes from the public at large. The house is virtually always sold out. There are 2600 seats in the house anil the 1best of them cost 120 lire (about $6 at present exchange) each. Mr. Scandiani told your correspondent that business was so good last year that the income from the sale of seats covered the operating cost, so that the subventions can presumably go toward the paying off of the box-recovery debt.
A FAMOUS OPERA HOUSE AND ITS FAMOUS MASTER.
La Scala, the most famous opera house of Italy, and a lute photograph of Arturo Toscanini, the artistic director who has restored it to its old time glory.
MARIE SWEET BAKER
Soprano
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This is all the more remarkable when one considers the high salaries paid, which in the case of leading singers are said to amount to from 12,000 to 15,000 lire a night. This at a normal rate of exchange would exceed the salaries paid to stars in New York. Director Scandiani frankly expressed his astonishment that Italian singers did not prefer to sing at least a part of the time in their own leading opera house, instead of spending all their time in America. He complained bitterly of the dearth of Italian singers available in Italy, and said that all attempts to reach a cooperative agreement with Mr. Gatti-Cassazza had failed.
“There are no stars at the Scala today,’’ said he with mingled regret and pride. “It is the ensemble that Toscanini has ׳built up that makes our opera what it is.” One who has heard performances at this remarkable theater lately could not but wish that it would always be that way, for with tenors like Pertile, baritones like Stracciari, sopranos like Carraccioli and Dalmonte, the lack of what we call “stars” is certainly not felt. ' The artists who sing at the Scala evidently prefer being artists to being stars, and to exercise their art in the interest of a uniformly high standard of art.
The organization of which they are members is without doubt one .of .the finest in the world today, and one of the
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