Music: Same Old Magic

"The greatest ovation in my 50 years of concert going," said Mrs. William Randolph Hearst Sr. Said Jeritza: "A rabbit could have scared me away. I went to the post like a race horse which wears blinders. My heart was going boom, boom, boom!"

It had been nine years since Maria Jeritza had sung before a New York audience, but all the old magic was still there. The 3,000 who jampacked Carnegie Hall cheered as they never had before — and many of them had bravoed many an earlier Jeritza performance. As much as anything...