MUSIC
RETURN OF THE NATIVE
5/20/46

After Allied bombers got through with Milan's famed La Scala in 1943, all that was left was the stage and four walls. Last week La Scala had been put back together again. Onto its reconstructed podium stepped little white-haired Arturo Toscanini, 79, who had scored some of his greatest triumphs there.

The 110-piece orchestra played as they had not for years. Toscanini had chosen Rossini, Verdi and Puccini, and when he conducted Verdi's "Te Deum", the audience got to its feet and shouted enthusiastically. Outside, in the public squares, more than 10,000 Milanese heard the music over loudspeakers and stayed to argue about it for most of the night.