Champion in Chains

Last week Professor Alfredo Salmaggi's popular priced opera returned once more to Manhattan's huge Hippodrome. An enthusiastic cast roared its way through

Aida, but the most notable feature of the evening was athletic rather than musical. When Rhadames (Vittorio Fullin) made his triumphal entry, who should be chained to his chariot but Jack ("Little Arthur") Johnson, Negro pugilist who once annoyed whites by being heavyweight champion of the world. Five thousand music lovers gaped and cheered while the barrel-chested black writhed in his chains and leopard skins to add artistic verisimilitude to his walk-on, nonsinging role of a captured Ethiopian general.

Wearing his familiar navy-blue beret, offstage Fisticuffer Johnson told newshawks he thought old friends like Geraldine Farrar, Lina Cavalieri and Lucrezia Bori were as pleasing to the eye as the artistes of the current season. Of Tetrazzini, whom he considered the greatest woman singer, Mr. Johnson remarked, "They'll never replace her. She was fat and clumpy, but she needed not beauty."

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