Boisterous

Maria Jeritza, famed soprano, appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan, sang in Fedora. Opposite her played Tenor Gigli, one whose voice is like honey tapering from the underside of a spoon, but whose height is abbreviated. Now Jeritza, as all the world knows, is a queenly lady "tall as a tall church candle" (TIME, Jan. 5). Mr. Gigli, whenever he sings with her, must swell his cockerel bosom, look to his biceps if he would be seen to play the man. In the last act of Fedora, hero and heroine meet, brawl; the latter is hurled to the ground. Gigli was determined to acquit himself well. Fiercely he struggled against the onslaught of Jeritza, flung her from him as prescribed; but ah! too boisterous was the fling. Headlong went she, to land in the glass and metal of the footlights, spraining and cutting her wrist. She arose, the performance went on to its applauded end. Two days later, she appeared, as Thais with a bandage on her wrist. Her legs, the press announced, were black and blue.