In Buenos Aires

Winter gathered in the South last week. The tops of the dark mountains were panelled brightly with ice. The chandeliers at the opera house, El Teatro Colon, in Buenos Aires, glittered as if with a luminous frost. At 9 o'clock, when the curbs outside it were populated with chauffeurs, wrapped in long coats, music began in El Colon. Tullio Serafin raised his baton, the violins began a soft prelude and the curtain rose upon Aida, a scene of warm sands and tropical trees.

The personnel of El Colon does not disgrace its surroundings. Since the southern season occurs precisely at the time when there is no important opera in the U. S. and when European Opera is passing through its slack season, El Colon can-- engage many of the most notable singers from either continent. This is attended to by Administrator Pablo F. Barbat; for the coming season he has secured the services of Gigli, Lauri-Volpi, Didur, Pinza, and Mme. Serafin-Rakowska of the Metropolitan; and of Maria Olczewska, Benvenuto Franci, Otto Wolf from various European companies. He plans to present Ildebrando Pizetti's new opera Fra Gherardo.

Last week when the season opened, Lauri-Volpi sang Rhadames in Aida. The smart citizens of Buenos Aires cheered the performance; one fat dealer in sheep's wool as he got into his Hispano-Suiza was heard to gurgle his approval in unquotable terms.

El Teatro Colon is no ordinary South-American opera house, such a dirty and pretentious little place as is to be found in almost every town, full of onion-eating opera lovers gazing at tenors who yodel and choke. El Teatro Colon is an enormous building of marble and white cement, facing a palmed piazza. In it there is room for 3,500 people to sit; these all come invariably in evening dress.