Return to La Scala

In the spring of 1946 Toscanini was standing by in New York in readiness for his long-awaited return to Milan. His informant there was Fritz Busch's son, Hans Peter, then serving with the occupying forces in north Italy and appointed at the war's end to take charge of all musical activities in the city for the Allied Military Government, including in particular La Scala. One of his noteworthy activities, close to Toscanini's heart, was soliciting funds for the rebuilding of the theatre with assistance from, among others, the Maestro's elder daughter, the ‘charming’ Wally; the cable to her father elicited a gift of one million lire. Further, Hans Peter organised immediate post-war La Scala concerts with politically clean conductors (too few, he remarked); he personally drove some of the most eminent exiled Jewish musicians back from the Swiss border – men such as Vittorio Veneziani, the famed La Scala chorusmaster on whose re-engagement Toscanini insisted; and he established and chaired the committee to run La Scala which in turn chose Antonio Ghiringhelli as the theatre's commissioner, later its general director.

Despite the evident dynamism of Hans Peter, delays in completing La Scala kept Toscanini in New York for some months early in 1946. Eventually he received the information both political and material for which he had been waiting. In mid- April he was assured that a referendum on the monarchy would take place in June and was also sufficiently reassured about the progress of La Scala's reconstruction by an invitation to return sent by Hans Peter.