Debut and Gallstones

Debut and Gallstones

If the singer had been an Italian tenor who had spent his last nickel on the claque, the ovation could not have been bigger than the one which swept Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House last week after the first-act curtain of Die Walkuere. The singer was Soprano Lotte Lehmann, a tall, stately German making her Metropolitan debut with a name already important in Europe and Chicago (TIME, Nov. 10, 1930 et seq.). Last week she was nervous. Her husband. Herr Otto Krause who left his insurance business in Vienna to hear the performance, knew it. The battered old doll which she kisses for luck each time she goes on stage trembled in her hands. But the audience saw no signs of uncertainty, no lack of confidence. They saw a Sieglinde who moved about the stage gracefully, so sure of each difficult phrase that she never had to cock an eye on the conductor. They heard a voice so warm and expressive that for once it was easy to believe in Sieglinde's sudden love for Siegmund.

Walkuere's second act might have ended disastrously if it had not been for the courage of Contralto Karin Branzell. She was Fricka, the angry goddess who has a long scene with the erring Wotan. Last week she had gallstones. Pain, not expert acting, made her sing most of her music with clenched fists. Finally she had to sit down on a stage rock but she finished her scene, majestically left the stage, fainted.

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