Bookends: Feb. 24, 1986

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OPERA ANECDOTES

by Ethan Mordden

Oxford; 267 pages; $16.95

Every opera fan knows how high Tosca bounced, when the next swan left and what Maria Callas thought of Renata Tebaldi; disasters, bons mots and bitchy remarks seem integral to the art. Ethan Mordden, who knows his way around backstage (Demented: The World of the Opera Diva; The Splendid Art of Opera), has gleefully amassed hundreds of such anecdotes, exchanges and choice bits of opera lore, along with some less celebrated stories. "Yet there is history here," he says, "for if many of the tales are silly, many others are telling."

Did you know that Verdi refunded most of the expenses of a man who had twice traveled to Parma from Reggio to see Aida, only to hate it both times, with the proviso that he never again attend a Verdi premiere? Or that Sir Thomas Beecham once advised a tenor to sing the last scene of La Boheme on the bed next to the dying Mimi? "In that position, my dear fellow," said the redoubtable baronet, "I have performed some of my greatest achievements." And who can top the advice Richard Tucker once gave Franco Corelli, when the golden-calved Italian tenor asked the American for the secret of his way with Puccini? "To sing it right, Franco," said the former Reuben Ticker, "you have to be Jewish." You could look it up.

A CRIMINAL COMEDY

by Julian Symons

Viking; 220 pages; $14.95

Rare indeed is the mystery novelist who ages well. Agatha Christie lost her sense of humor, Dorothy Sayers her plot outlines, John le Carre his vital interest in the genre. But at 73, Julian Symons has just published perhaps his best mystery ever, a fiendish little puzzle that is elegantly written and pitilessly observed.

As he has often done in the past, Symons sets his "comedy" in a thriving town just outside London, among attractive, successful, venal people. This crowd is all connected to PC Travel, a partnership between mean, porcine Charles Porson and charming, handsome Derek Crowley. The plot starts out with a littering of anonymous letters around town, accusing Crowley of an affair with Porson's pretty young wife. There are two clumsy attempts at murder and then two quite successful ones that occur on a PC tour of Venice. If the terrain is familiar to Symons, every detail is fresh, right down to the crisp use of Venice, blessedly free of tax write-off color. A Criminal Comedy is a , zestful work of a master still challenging his craft.

LIE DOWN WITH LIONS

by Ken Follett

Morrow; 333 pages; $18.95