The Big Baton Mystery

It was the "waiting music" that introduces the third act of Madame Butterfly. In the pit of Chicago's Civic Opera House, Conductor Laszlo Halasz turned to the first-violin section of his New York City Opera Company orchestra to urge them on. Few in the audience noticed what happened next, but it made the most controversial musical mystery of the week.

The fact was that astonished young (28) Concertmaster Alfred Bruening caught a flying baton in the face. The mystery: Did the baton just slip out of Halasz's hand, as Halasz claimed, or did he hurl it, straight and true as a javelin, as the outraged concertmaster afterward charged?

There were partisans in the orchestra to support each hypothesis. But James Caesar Petrillo, czar of the mighty American Federation of Musicians, rushed to the concertmaster's corner. "The way I understand it," steamed Petrillo, "things weren't going so good, so [Halasz] throws the baton in this kid's face ... If Halasz is looking for trouble he's going to get it--especially in Chicago." Petrillo stoked his boiler until just before curtain time for the next performance, and then, with the audience in their seats for Carmen, ordered the musicians out of the pit until Halasz apologized.

"Did you throw the baton?" roared Petrillo. "Of course not, it's ridiculous," replied Halasz. "If you threw the baton, are you ready to apologize?" "I didn't throw the baton," insisted Halasz.

Petrillo, at ffff: "If you threw that baton, would you be willing to apologize?" "Yes," said Halasz, "but I didn't throw the baton." Said Petrillo: "That constitutes an apology. It's settled." Fifteen minutes late, the curtain finally went up on Carmen.

Still protesting his innocence, Halasz conducted in Milwaukee the next night with bare hands. "I feel," he said, "that the baton handicaps me a little when it comes to smoother movements."

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