Arturo Toscanini

Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor, born in Parma in 1867, who began as a cellist and first conducted in Rio de Janeiro in 1886, leading Aida from memory at the age of 19. He conducted the world premieres of Leoncavallo's Pagliacci and Puccini's La bohème, was principal conductor and later music director of La Scala, and led the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic. An opponent of Mussolini, he refused to conduct the Fascist anthem Giovinezza and was beaten by Blackshirts in Bologna in 1931. From 1937 to 1954 he was the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, whose broadcasts and recordings reached a mass audience. He died in New York in 1957.