Music: Maggie Teyte Comes Back

The tiny English soprano trilled like a bird and danced on legs as dainty as the Philadelphia opera house had ever seen. The applause for the voice and the legs (the year was 1911) was heard from coast to coast. After that, for ten publicity-filled years, blue-eyed, 5-ft Maggie Teyte was America's operatic sweetheart. Her life, as gay as a light opera, came to its operatic climax when she married a millionaire and retired to luxurious obscurity in England.

Last week chestnut-haired Maggie Teyte, 56 but still vivacious, returned to the U.S. to tour in a new role. She starts with a...