TOSCANINI CONDUCTS VERDI:
FALSTAFF Rehearsals
CD-4248(2)
Toscanini?s last performance of Falstaff in two NBC
broadcast concerts of April 1 and 8, 1950, is the one whose rehearsals are
documented here. Falstaff was the opera Toscanini performed
more frequently than any other and, as he often remarked to friends in conversation,
it was the one he found "most beautiful" of all.
What this album presents, then, is the fruit of this century?s greatest
conductor?s fifty-six-year engagement with what is surely one of the handful
of the world?s very greatest operas. The commercially issued recording
of the broadcast performances of April 1950 was long available, on RCA set
60326-2-RG; what we have here is a selection from the surviving recordings
of Toscanini?s rehearsals for the first of those two broadcasts.
During his lifetime and even after, Toscanini?s rehearsals were famous,
but usually for the wrong reasons. What one mainly heard about were
the ferocious displays of temper, the monumental blowups that often reduced
singers to tears and orchestra players to grumbling resentment. Several
snippets from these rehearsals have even become well-known collector?s items:
The one where he smashes his watch, the one where he screams "Put something!
Put your blood!" And the one where, after an outburst of rage, he confesses
"I do not enjoy to conduct. I hate to conduct", and then reassures
his startled orchestra: "I am not crazy, I am sensitive."
But all the rages, the breaking of batons (and even watches), the hoarsely bellowed insults and curses -- these were beside the point, as his more intelligent orchestra players recognized. In fact, most of the time, at most rehearsals, Toscanini was wonderfully efficient and productive, as we can see from extended excerpts like the ones in this set.
When this set first appeared, Morton H. Frank wrote in Fanfare: "What is to be heard here is the work of a consummate professional who knows how to get the most done in the least time... and of a conductor who displays patience and total involvement with the music...."
CD-4248(2) TOSCANINI CONDUCTS VERDI: FALSTAFF?Rehearsals. (March 1950) Alice Ford: Herva Nelli, sop; Nanetta: Teresa Stich-Radall, sop.; Mistress Page: Nan Merriman, mezzo; Falstaff: Guiseppe Valdengo, barit.; Dame Quickly: Cloe Elmo, mezzo; Ford : Frank Guarrera, barit.; and Pistol: Norman Scott, bass. Originally issued in 1986 on CD-248; newly restored by Graham Newton (2003).
CD No. 1 - 61:51; CD No. 2 - 63:17. AAD. UPC # 0-17685-42482-3.