Arturo Toscanini

"They ask me what my secret is. My secret is very simple: it consists in having the music performed, note by note, as the author wrote it."

"La Scala is the lover who made me despair the most"

"Every rehearsal is like a concert, and every concert like a debut."

"I feel the necessity to tell you for once how much I admire and honor you. You are not only the unmatchable interpreter of the world’s musical literature [...] In the fight against the fascist criminals, too, you have shown yourself to be a man of greatest dignity [...] The fact that such a contemporary exists balances many of the delusions one must continually experience from the species minorum gentium."

"Qui finisce lopera, perché a questo punto il maestro è morto."

"1909, the Edwardian golden days. Genteel civilization had come to England, the continent, and the eastern United States. New York rivaled London and Paris as one of the great metropolises of the world. Albert Einstein had expounded his theory of relativity back in 1905, and science had brought us the wonders of the modern world. Culture and refinement had arrived on the east coast of America. Caruso was singing Pagliacci at the Met. Arturo Toscanini was conducting. The Barrymores were performing and a Ziegfeld girl was the rage."