Music: Young Man at the Opera

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The young man was breathing hard as he tried for the fourth time to tie his stiff white tie so that both ends would come out even. Then he slipped on his rented tails, feeling a little ridiculous, and off he went to pick up his date. Opening night at the Metropolitan Opera (they said) was just about the most exciting occasion of the New York season and should therefore prove (he hoped) the most effective way to impress a girl. The investment of $60 for a pair of tickets was considerable (particularly since the show was on theater TV in Brooklyn, and dozens of other places, at $3 a seat). But this was a very special kind of girl, who knew her music. In the jogging taxi, the young man was delighted when she cooed: "I've never been so thrilled in my life."

The young man had never seen grand opera except in the movies, but it must be pretty grand, all right. Look at that line of people who had been standing in the cold for three days in order to stand for four hours more inside. In the crowded lobby, his date fully expected to see a contingent of Astors and Vanderbilts (nobody had told her that opening night at the Met is, more and more, a circus, less and less a real social event). But the young man saw quite a few celebrities: an ex-Miss America, Margaret Truman, Eddie Fisher and his Debbie, and that blonde sagging under her jewelry—that was Hope Hampton.

Two on the Hook. The program listed the prologue to Pagliacci. The big curtains parted on a husky, stiff-backed man named Leonard Warren, dressed in a peculiar costume—tails and a blue shirt (probably for TV). His words were in incomprehensible Italian, but he certainly could sing. Next came the first act from La Bohème. The scene was a huge, musty attic with four gay blades romping around. The music was very pretty, and it seemed clear that the stocky fellow in an artist's beret named Richard Tucker was making time with Victoria de los Angeles. This kind of thing, thought the young man, should at least put his date in the right mood.

In the intermission, the young man and his girl got caught in the crush on the way upstairs to the bar—he had never seen so many jewels and furs in his life—and only just managed to get Scotch-and-soda (at $1.00 each) before the bell summoned them back for the second act of Barber of Seville. The setting was a knockout, bright and modern-looking, and the heroine—this time it was pretty Roberta Peters—sang a tricky song he had often heard on the radio, called Una Voce Poco Fa. After that there was a lot of fine singing and clowning. Fat Fernando Corena sat in a fat chair and glared suspiciously at everybody; tall, skinny Jerome Hines wore a crazy hat, sat in a tall, skinny chair, giving him arguments. The heroine seemed to have two other men on the hook, a nobleman named Cesare Valletti and the barber, sung by Robert Merrill. It was pretty confusing, especially when the soldiers came on, tramped back and forth and nobody seemed to be in charge, but everybody certainly could sing.