Million Volts at the Met

One afternoon last week a little troupe of four, all wearing the discreet air of superior domestics, filed through the stage door of the Metropolitan Opera House. They went directly to the star dressing room, unwrapped their parcels, and began hanging yellow brocade. By 6 p.m., all was ready for their mistress: the ugly green walls and dowdy dressing table were resplendent with silk. It was the royal treatment, for it is not every day that Maria Jeritza comes back to sing at the Met.

Last week, back she was, for the first time in 19 years, to sing Rosalinda in a benefit performance of Rudolf Bing's restyled Fledermaus. She first sang the role more than 30 years ago in Vienna. Tall, straight and blue-eyed as ever at 63, Maria gave the mid-century Met a course in the grand old style.

Don't Forget. When she arrived for her first rehearsal, awed Met youngsters understood in an electric flash why Puccini and Richard Strauss lavished compliments and roles* on her. It was more than her million-volt personal magnetism. Said Conductor Tibor Kozma: "She works hard, with intensity. No monkey business. And she could give us all lessons in theater."

Jeritza could hardly restrain herself from giving lessons. Once she grabbed an astonished young partner in the "Czardas" number, whirled him nearly off his feet, crying, "Here--a Hungarian goes like this!" Another time, a dancer wound up in front of her. "Behind me! Behind me!'' she cried. "Never get in front of anybody on the stage!" Nobody really cared that the luster was gone from her voice. "Naturally, she's not going to sing the way she did a generation back," a musician said. "Nobody expects her to. But also don't forget that she's a genuine, 24-carat prima donna of the old school."

Deep Curtsy. The 24-carat prima donna was what a Metful of admirers (including one who flew from France) paid a top to see, and just what they got.

When she made her entrance, magnificently gowned and bejeweled, Conductor Eugene Ormandy had to stop the music and let the audience have its way. For nearly a minute, the famed old soprano held her entrance pose, seemingly genuinely startled at the cheers and the cries of "Maria!" Then she came front & center and made a deep curtsy that was a production in itself. From there on, the show was hers (with Patrice Munsel's Adele a close second). But instead of running away with it, she played it with reserved authority, grace, wit and charm.

After the curtain calls, there was almost as much of a show backstage. For Jeritza, it was like old times. Five barons came to salute her in her dressing room, and they helped carry her flowers to her car. Says Jeritza with a dazzling smile: "Wasn't that delicious?"

* Her most famous: Tosca, Salome, Octavian in Dcr Rosenkavalier, and the title role of Turandot, which Puccini worked on at Jeritza's house in Vienna.

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