Ettore Panizza

Like Toscanini, Panizza eventually moved the base of his operations across the Atlantic, succeeding Tullio Serafin as the principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera’s Italian repertoire between 1934 and 1942. He also conducted regularly in his home city of Buenos Aires, between 1921 and 1955 being responsible for twenty seasons of opera at the Teatro Colón. In addition he conducted, as a guest, opera performances and symphony concerts in Berlin, Vienna and Chicago. He was greatly admired for his grasp of the German as well as the Italian repertoire: in 1932 Richard Strauss wrote to him, ‘I continue to recall the magnificent Elektra which you directed in Milan with such finesse and élan, fulfilling all my wildest dreams. I hear that they intend to put on Elektra this summer in Buenos Aires, and you mentioned that you most probably will be the musical director of the Colón Theatre. In that event, I shall have only one desire: that you direct my Elektra also in Buenos Aires; I cannot think of a better interpreter...’ As a composer Panizza possessed complete technical mastery, and his own operas reflected the verismo style of composition which was both popular and influential at the turn of the century. He enjoyed early acclaim when his opera Medio evo latino was performed in Buenos Aires during the 1901 season conducted by Toscanini; and two more of his operas, Aurora and Besanzo, were successfully mounted in Buenos Aires, with the former joining the permanent repertoire of the Colón in a revised version.

Panizza’s conducting style was highly dynamic and extraordinarily vigorous, as may be heard from the many published recordings of radio broadcasts of performances that he conducted at the Metropolitan Opera. For instance in the famous performance from 1935 of Verdi’s La traviata with Rosa Ponselle, he can be heard quite clearly shouting ‘Attacca!’ to the orchestra after the end of the Prelude to Act I, and immediately launching into a most hectic and dramatic, as well as highly appropriate, tempo.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Patmore (A–Z of Conductors, Naxos 8.558087–90).