And Mozart

Flowers were in the arms of Lucrezia Bori and everywhere on the front of the stage. Applause was thundering. Miss Bori was bowing. The audience was standing up. Miss Bori tossed one of her bouquets to a woman standing in the second row of the orchestra. The woman caught it gracefully. She, too, bowed. The applause was getting louder and louder. Much of it was meant for the woman in the second row. Her name, as everyone knew, was Geraldine Farrar, 46, onetime darling of the diamond horseshoe.

Thus, the noisiest, longest and perhaps the most sincere demonstration of the Metropolitan Opera Company's season in Manhattan. It happened last week after the second act of La Rondine, in which Miss Bori sang with triumphant charm. It was also the last week of the season; but before Miss Bori packed her trunks, she did something that would have pleased the late Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was not easy, for Mozart operas have become so unfashionable that the Metropolitan dismisses him with one performance a season. But Miss Bori was allowed to sing Despina in his Cos`i Fan Tutte ('Tis Thus They All Do). There was no denying that the story of two young men setting out to hoodwink their fiancees into infidelity was faint fodder for great music. Mozart, however, could put anything--a piece of string, a blot of ink--to music. So well did Miss Bori interpret Cos`i Fan Tutte that critics raised a cry for more Mozart.*

Giulio Gatti-Casazza has completed 20 years as impresario of the Metropolitan. He has given the public what it liked. He has experimented occasionally to please the epicures. The three composers whose works have had most performances are:

Richard Wagner . . . . . . . 519

Giacomo Puccini . . . . . . . 471

Giuseppe Verdi . . . . . . . 451

Aida [Verdi] with 146 performances led all the rest. Next came La Boheme [Puccini], 130; Madame Butterfly [Puccini], 127; Pagliacci [Leoncavallo], 125; Tosca [Puccini], 116; Cavalleria Rusticana [Mascagni], 107.

* Born in Salzburg in 1756, Mozart began to compose music at the age of six. His best known operas are The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute.