Toscanini and Parma -- "UN BALLO IN MASCHERA"

Speranza

According to Toscanini, everybody in his native Parma knew the standard operas.

In the Toscanini workshop-living-room the workers frequently broke into song and little ARTURO knew the arias and ensemble numbers of many operas long before he learned to read music or saw the inside of an opera house.

Music, so learned at secondhand, was sometimes likely to be inaccurate.

Of this, Arturo, of course, was blissfully unaware.

So much so, that when he was taken to the gallery of the PARMA OPERA HOUSE to hear his first opera, Verdi's UN BALLO IN MASCHERA, he was shocked to hear the tenor sing a certain aria in a manner that he, the child Toscanini, considered WRONG.

"No, no, you are wrong!"

the little boy in the gallery, cupping his hand, shouted at the astonished tenor on the stage. "It goes like this". And the child sang out the tune with all the imperfections he had learned at home.