Debut

The great yellow curtain dropped on the first act of La Boheme at a special matinee given last week at the Metropolitan Opera House, Manhattan. A very special audience there for a special occasion burst into applause, prolonged it until the only performer left bowing on the stage was pretty, charming Mary Lewis, onetime Ziegfeld Follies girl, appearing for the first time at the Metropolitan as Mimi. Members of the special audience clapped their hands red. Many of them, stationed conveniently in the front of the orchestra in seats warmed these many years by long-nosed subscribers, reached underneath, pulled forth corsages of violets, hurled them at pretty Mary Lewis, hurled so many that she and genial Edward Johnson had difficulty in gathering them all in, had no place to put them until they bethought themselves of Mimi's apron and filled that.

A curtain on the second act, on the third, on the last. More violets--for violets were the order of the day--and Mary Lewis had finished her debut performance with all the earmarks of a great success.

Mary Lewis was tired. So was the special audience, many of which, having regarded opera as a rather formidable sort of entertainment, had never ventured in before. Musicians in the orchestra, going home for supper before the evening performance, felt little fatigue, for they had been called upon for a very subdued performance so that the special audience would be sure to hear Mary Lewis.

Critics, pleased by her attractive manner, by her knowledge of the stage, were forced to admit that her voice, though not unlovely in quality, is frail, that her vocal technique is frailer, that she was frequently unfaithful to pitch, that she is not up to Metropolitan standard.