New Violetta

As a rule the success of opera stars does not depend so much on good looks or good acting as on good singing. But once in a great while an opera singer comes along who can get full marks on all three counts. When lovely-looking Czech Soprano Jarmila Novotna made her debut last month as the subdued, tuberculous Mimi of Puccini's lavender & lacy La Boheme, nobody had paid much attention. But last week, as Violetta in Traviata, Soprano Novotna had a real part to play. To the surprise of Manhattan's canniest operagoers, she stole the show. She sang her liquid, hand-organ melodies with every trick of the diva's trade, set a new standard for operatic acting at the Metropolitan. Subtly and fetchingly she ogled, fumed, sighed and died. Critics dusted off ten-dollar adjectives, overlooked nearly a generation of famed Violettas (Ponselle, Bori, Muzio) for their comparisons, acclaimed Novotna's the greatest in 20 years.

Famed in Europe not only as an opera star but as a cinemactress, beauteous Jarmila Novotna got much of her acting experience with Director Max Reinhardt, who coached her in roles for the Berlin Opera and other big-time European opera houses. The daughter of a Prague banker, she sang her first Violetta there when she was 17, soon made a reputation as the most eye-filling diva on the European operatic stage. When Toscanini heard her sing at Salzburg in 1937, he told Impresario Edward Johnson about her, and the Metropolitan signed her up. In private life Jar mila Novotna is the wife of Baron George Daubek. Mother of two children, she keeps house for the Baron in a duplex apartment on Manhattan's Park Avenue.

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