Wagnerian Conductor

In 1915, while German U-boats were ranging the Atlantic traffic lanes, a gaunt and hawklike Austrian arrived in Manhattan. He spoke no English, but his first act was to make a translated statement to the press: "I hope to please the American public and if I do I shall become a citizen of your country. I do not wish to be known as a Wagnerian conductor, as I love the operas of all nations." Month later, stepping into the Metropolitan's orchestra pit recently vacated by Arturo Toscanini and his bald, black-bearded co-worker Alfred Hertz, Artur Bodanzky shook his baton at four hours of Wagner's Goetterdaemmerung. Critics were impressed. Bodanzky stayed, became a U. S. citizen and a permanent conductor at the Metropolitan. But he got few chances to conduct anything but Wagnerian opera.

In 1929, after a tiff with the Met's management, Artur Bodanzky. still a Wagnerian conductor, resigned to conduct symphonies for Manhattan's Friends of Music. Said he: "I shall not say I am sorry to give up opera." To replace him the Metropolitan imported an unknown named Josef Rosenstock. After five of Rosenstock's feeble exhibitions of batonistic piddle-paddle, Manhattan critics howled him down, sent him scurrying back where he came from. General Manager Gatti-Casazza persuaded Bodanzky to return. For ten more years he went on conducting Wagnerian opera.

Last week, just as the Metropolitan was brushing off its costumes for the opening of the opera season, 61-year-old Conductor Bodanzky died of heart disease. Willy-nilly, he left behind him a reputation as a Wagnerian conductor--one of the world's best. Under his morose, buzzardy stare, Tristans and Goetterdaemmerungs became not only the best produced, but the most popular operas in the Metropolitan's repertory. Behind the throne of General Manager Edward Johnson, Bodanzky was a great power in the Met, had more to say about who should sing what, and how, than anyone else.

A gloomy autocrat, Bodanzky drove every performance he conducted with a tight rein, lashed world-famed tenors and sopranos at rehearsals with a hot tongue ("Who told you you could sing?"). When he was feeling impatient he would sometimes drag a performance over the jumps as if he were rushing for a train. But when Artur Bodanzky felt just right, he could drive a pack of Valkyries through the Nibelung clouds like Wotan himself.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.