Tourist, with Booty

Pale and exhausted, the Detroit Symphony's Conductor Karl Krueger returned to the U.S. last week. From three months of conducting in Europe he brought back two prizes that made his trip worthwhile :

1) The original score for the overture to The Merry Widow, composed last winter by 76-year-old Franz Lehar. Lehar told Krueger, "After 40 years I finally got around to writing an overture."

2) A contract for the first U.S. appearance of Eva Prchlikova, a sensational young Czech soprano. An Army captain in Frankfurt who had heard her sing told Krueger about her, arranged a quick audition in an empty Army mess hall. She sang for two hours, scorned warm-up and launched confidently into the "Queen of the Night," Mozart's test-piece from The Magic Flute.* Krueger signed her on the spot.

*The aria was recorded with uproarious results by the late Florence Foster Jenkins (TIME, June 16, 1941), elderly amateur coloratura, whose costumed concerts in Manhattan were attended for the laughs.

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