de Lussan as Nannetta and Sofia Scalchi as Mistress Quickly. Neglect After the initial excitement, audiences quickly diminished. Operagoers were nonplussed by the absence of big traditional arias and choruses. A contemporary critic summed it up: "'Is this our Verdi?' they asked themselves. 'But where is the motive; where are the broad melodies ... where are the usual ensembles; the finales?'" By the time of Verdi's death in 1901 the work had fallen out of the international repertoire, though Gustav Mahler, an admirer of Verdi, led a production of "exceptional quality" in 1904 at the Vienna Court Opera. The rising young conductor Arturo Toscanini was a strong advocate of the work, and did much to save it from neglect. As musical director of La Scala (from 1898) and the Metropolitan Opera (from 1908), he programmed Falstaff from the start of his tenure. Richard Aldrich, music critic of The New York Times, wrote that Toscanini's revival "ought to be marked in red letters in the record of the season. Falstaff, which was first produced here on February 4, 1895, has not been given since the following season, and was heard in these two seasons only half a dozen times in all." Aldrich added that though the general public might have had difficulty with the work, "to connoisseurs it was an unending delight". In Britain, as in continental Europe and the US, the work fell out of the repertoire. Sir Thomas Beecham revived it in 1919, and recalling in his memoirs that the public had stayed away he commented: Toscanini recognised that this was the view of many, but he believed the work to be Verdi's greatest opera; he said, "I believe it will take years and years before the general public understand this masterpiece, but when they really know it they will run to hear it like they do now for Rigoletto and La traviata." Re-emergence Toscanini returned to La Scala in 1921 and remained in charge there until 1929, presenting Falstaff in every season. He took the work to Germany and Austria in the late 1920s and the 1930s, conducting it in Vienna, Berlin and at three successive Salzburg Festivals. Among those inspired by Toscanini's performances were Herbert von Karajan and Georg Solti, who were among his répétiteurs at Salzburg. Toscanini's younger colleague Tullio Serafin continued to present the work in Germany and Austria after Toscanini refused to perform there