Metropolitan's Return

Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the silent, Jovian man who for 25 years has sat in a musty back office guiding the affairs of Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera Company, was given a party this week. His 200 singers sang for him. Oldtime Metropolitan stars returned to the stage to honor him.* Swayed by the wholehearted sentiment which opera-folk thrive on, the house fairly shook with shouts when the Metropolitan ballet shaped itself into a giant birthday cake, held up 25 candles. From his grandtier box Mr. Gatti gravely gave the Italian salute but no amount of persuasion would bring him to the stage from which he took his last bow in 1908, standing between Conductor Arturo Toscanini and Tenor Enrico Caruso.

On view at Gatti's party there were people whose memories went back further than his. Marcella Sembrich, who sang at the Metropolitan 50 years ago, made a quavering little speech. Walter Damrosch, who conducted there 48 years ago, helped master ceremonies. Out of her seclusion came Olive Fremstad whose Wagnerian interpretations have not been approached until this winter when Frida Leider and Maria Olszewska joined the Metropolitan./- Together the oldtimers sat at a table in a night-club scene, watched Lucrezia Bori and Rosa Ponselle do lively impersonations of cigaret girls, after which tiny Lily Pons did an Apache dance with enormous Lauritz Melchior as her shrinking partner and Dancer Rosina Galli, Mr. Gatti's wife, conducted the orchestra.

Inconspicuous was the part played by the newest member of the Metropolitan family. Tenor Alexander Richard Crooks had had his share of recognition the afternoon before, when he made his Metropolitan debut as the Chevalier des Grieux in Massenet's Manon. He had stopped the performance when he first came on stage, a tall, broad-shouldered, unaffected person unlike the run of chunky, strutting tenors. He had stopped it again with his quiet, tender singing of the second-act drama. He had taken more than 35 curtain calls, clinging tight to the hand of Soprano Lucrezia Bori, who had done much to help him around the stage, on which he had never rehearsed. But if with his acting Tenor Crooks reminded people of a solemn young amateur done up for the first time in the frills and wigs of 18th Century Paris, he more than made up with his singing. Only occasionally did he force his smooth, light voice into tones which were dry and pinched.

Unlike most young U. S. singers engaged lately by the Metropolitan, Tenor Crooks had made his name beforehand. At 11 he was a wonder boy soprano, commuting from his home in Trenton to sing at All Angels' Episcopal Church in Manhattan. At 12 he sang with Ernestine Schumann-Heink in a huge Ocean Grove (N. J.) festival, maintained perfect poise until the motherly contralto brought him back for a bow, gave him a resounding kiss. The War turned Richard Crooks's mind from singing. He overstated his age to join the 626th Aero Squadron, learned flying from Col. Clarence Chamberlin. He was selling insurance when the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church chose him from 46 applicants to be its tenor soloist. There followed concerts with Walter Damrosch's New York Symphony, concerts on his own, numerous festival engagements, finally an operatic debut six years ago in Germany.

To radio enthusiasts Tenor Crooks is a fond familiar. For the last two seasons he has been, next to Baritone Lawrence Tibbett, the most popular classical singer on the air, broadcasting (as does Baritone Tibbett) for Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. at a fee of $2,250 a broadcast. Concert and radio fees, which amount to far more than he will receive at the Metropolitan, have enabled Tenor Crooks to indulge again his passion for flying. He keeps a seaplane at his home in Sea Girt, N. J., often takes off at dawn for Cape Hatteras where he trolls for amber jack and shark. The time he gives to flying, fishing, hunting, golf (he shoots 81), bridge (he often plays with Expert Sidney Lenz) is reflective of Richard Crooks's unaffected approach to his career. The host of friends which jammed the steps to his dressing-room after his debut was evidence of his popularity. New Jersey's Governor Arthur Harry Moore was there with a delegation from Trenton. Seven-year-old Richard Crooks Jr. was there, loudly announcing that he would not answer one more person who asked him how he had liked the performance.

* Conspicuously absent was Soprano Maria Jeritza. She was in Chicago, singing her famed Tosca there for the first time, before packed, enthusiastic houses. Across the Loop Mary Garden was singing folk songs in a cinemansion.

/-Fremstad's phonograph records are in such demand that the International Record Collector's Club in Bridgeport, Conn., has started reissuing them. Her "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde can never be remade. The matrix was lost. In Manhattan $100 has been offered for a copy of the original.

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