Philadelphia

The citizens of this historic town had the opportunity on Tuesday to hear Jeritza in Thais. It is not recorded that the Liberty Bell began to ring, or that the Continental Congress reconvened to render a vote of thanks to the beauty. But Jeritza enacted the role of the wild lady of Alexandria who turned nun--as wild ladies sometimes do today--and there was applause enough.

This Jeritza is a miracle of that vague quality we call personality. No one of those present at the time will forget his first sight of her in Die Tote Stadt a year ago. The wizardly clever but banal music had woven a climax for a superb entrance. A door swung open, and on the upper landing of a low stairway a flame of orange appeared, a Juno-like figure radiant in smiles and a blond glamor. That was Jeritza.

She hasn't a great voice. She can act, of course, especially in those roles that call for the robust, voluptuous type. But it is mainly that mystical something that passes across the footlights and makes the audience a collection of cheerers--personality. Caruso had it, and it did as much toward his success as his miracles of voice and phrasing. The crowd liked Caruso. He made friends with them right away.

Jeritza hasn't half the voice of Rosa Ponselle of the Metropolitan Company. Ponselle has one of the finest soprano voices in the world. She doesn't catch on. That, of course, is partly because she is an American, by birth, study, and career. It is to be doubted that any singer has ever made a debut with the fortunate circumstances under which Rosa Ponselle made hers. She had been a cabaret singer in New Haven, Conn. She was just out of vaudeville. Gatti Casazza thought he had found a second Farrar. For her first operatic appearance, the New Haven girl opened the Metropolitan season singing opposite Caruso in Forza del Destino. She had an enormous triumph that night. Since then her success has languished. She is an American. Perhaps if she had the personality of Jeritza she could have overcome that handicap.