Excitement at the Met

Last March the S. S. Ile de France brought into the U. S. a French girl who spoke no English. Her name was Lily Pons but it mattered to no one. She went to bed for eight days to recover from seasickness.

One afternoon last week Lily Pons sang Lucia at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera. Boxholders and peanut-galleryites liked her better than they have liked any newcomer in years. And Lily Pons went to bed at nine o'clock famous.

Still, nobody knew much about her. Metropolitan debuts have been dull lately. Coloraturas are out of vogue and newsmen had not thought it worth their while to find out that this new one was married to a Dutchman almost twice her age, that her father, a violinist, had earned a certain notoriety by motoring from Cannes to Paris and back when automobiles were practically unknown. After Lucia they changed their minds. Lily Pons, they found out then, was not big-chested and chunky like most Lucias. She was fragile-appearing as befits an opera heroine who must die of grief, graceful, chicly costumed. Her first singing was uneven but after villainous Lord Ashton (Baritone Giuseppe de Luca) had driven her to her wits' end with his connivings against her lover (Tenor Beniamino Gigli) she found her stride. The Mad Scene, given in the key of F instead of a tone lower as is usually the case, was superbly sung. Difficult chromatic runs and arpeggios done with the greatest ease, trills and staccati true to pitch (coloraturas are inclined to sing off-key), a high E flat clearly sung, not just peeped--these won her cheers and a dozen or more curtain calls.

A greater triumph was to come in Rigoletto a few nights later. The boxes were filled with fashionable Wednesday-nighters, the house tensely expectant. Soon came the Caro nome aria and Lily Pons stopped the show. Applause lasted ten minutes by the clock. After the second act she had ten curtain calls. After the final curtain 500 yelling enthusiasts stayed 35 minutes, recalled her in all some 30 times. As in Lucia it was her singing not her acting which offered the emotional thrill.

At Lily Pons's first performances there were none so excited as a portly middle-aged couple well known to the opera public of 20 years ago. The woman was Maria Gay, once a famed Carmen with the Metropolitan and Boston Opera companies. The man was her husband, Tenor Giovanni Zenatello. Motoring along the Riviera last winter these two had stopped in at a little opera house in Montpellier to hear Lucia. After the small-town performance they rushed backstage to meet the soprano. "Will you come to America if I can get you an audition with the Metropolitan?" Madame Gay asked breathlessly. Lily Pons said she would and the Zenatellos could not get back to Manhattan fast enough. They hurried to see General Manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza. He shrugged his shoulders. He hears of many "discoveries" and this one had had only three years' experience in unimportant opera houses, had never sung at all in Paris. "But," said Madame Gay, "if she fails I pay the passage."

Two days after her Metropolitan audition last March Lily Pons had signed three big contracts: one for five years with the Metropolitan Opera, one with Victor Talking Machine Co., another for concerts with the Metropolitan Musical Bureau (managers of Rosa Ponselle, Maria Jeritza, La Argentina). In France two people were proudly told the news. One was Lily Pons's mother, who after the father's death started a dressmaker's establishment in Cannes to provide for her three little girls, moved up to Paris when Lily decided she wanted to study piano at the Conservatoire. The other was Lily Pons's husband, August Mesritz, a wealthy Dutch banker and newspaper manager who retired to tinker at painting at the Riviera. Husband Mesritz first suggested that Lily study for opera. She had had some experience as a comedy ingenue, sang an incidental song once and had a small success. She set to work, within a year made her debut in Mulhouse, Alsace. Three years later she was summering in Verona with the Zenatellos, building her weight up to 105 pounds, preparing costumes and studying the roles she was engaged to sing her first year at the Metropolitan. Fortunately she was spared the Chamber of Commerce ballyhoo which spoiled Colora tura Marion Talley. After her debut Talley found herself in shoes too big for her but she became high-handed nevertheless, refused advice, in three years was out of the Metropolitan. Coloratura Pons has yet to prove herself. But on the night of her debut after she had been in bed a half an hour she called to her husband: "Bring me the score of Lucia. I must see if I cannot sing it better."

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