Story-Teller

Box 42 at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House resembled a miniature sitting-room one afternoon last week. The antechamber was shut off from the house by a glass partition. In it were flowers, a shaded lamp, a piano and a charming white-haired lady. Geraldine Farrar was making her debut as raconteuse for the Metropolitan broadcasts.

As Lambert Co. (Listerine) anticipated when it engaged her last autumn (TIME, Nov. 12), Farrar proved to be no ordinary storyteller. Her first broadcast was for the holiday matinee of Hansel und Gretel. But instead of lingering over a plot which every one knows, she chatted informally about the 52-year-old Opera House, candidly admitted that it was a year younger than she was.

The raggedy pig-tailed Gretel was Soprano Queena Mario who in California once sang Micaela to Farrar's Carmen. Farrar recalled how at that performance she had gone to the young singer's dressing-room and fairly dragged her out to bow before the curtain. Instead of a long-winded analysis of Humperdinck's music, Farrar sang the children's prayer, playing her own accompaniment. Listeners were amazed at the freshness of her voice.

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