Bohnen

It will be one of the greatest of blessings if the Metropolitan gives Don Giovanni next year. This is a masterpiece that one rarely gets a chance to hear. The basso that can sing and play the role of that prodigious Don Juan Tenorio, who was such a favorite among the virgins of Spain, is seldom to be found. The Metropolitan now, however, has a man with a reputation for singing Don Giovanni. He is Michael Bohnen, who made his American debut in the middle of the season. Bohnen is that exceptional phenomenon among singers, a man of high intelligence and culture. He is distinctly a man of parts. His voice is fine, big, fresh and young. He sings with skill and excellent understanding and is really a masterful actor, and, indeed, has a reputation in Germany as a nonsinging and even nonspeaking actor. He has had much experience and success as a player for the motion pictures. He is, too, an athlete, a tremendously strong fellow, one of the best amateur wrestlers in Germany and a boxer who, if he may be a little bit slow and cumbersome for American boxing ideals, is quite a paladin with the fists in Central Europe.