When Giulio Gatti-Casazza returns to Manhattan from his summers in Italy, the long-established routine has been for him to summon musical reporters and inform them of the singers he has engaged, the operas he intends to produce the coming season. The picture in his dark, musty office has always been the same: Gatti settling his great bulk in a swivel chair, fumbling for the ribbon which holds his pince-nez, reading his announcement aloud in slow, painstaking English. When questions were asked, he would stroke his beard, answer warily or not at all. A...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
