Music: Ponselle in London

In the flowing white robes of a Druid priestess, Rosa Ponselle, soprano of the Metropolitan Opera, waited in a dressing room of London Covent Garden last week. She tapped her foot, tried her voice, added a touch of carmine to her cheeks, adjusted the green wreath on her flowing black hair. Tomorrow her British debut would be over. Tonight she must face the coldest public in the world, a public which had not heard Norma since the late great Lilli Lehmann sang it in London 30 years before, Lehmann who had said: "I would...