Debutantes

In 1934 white-haired, senatorial Walter Damrosch went to St. Louis to conduct a Saengerjest held by St. Louis' song-loving German-Americans. Billed as soloist on his program was a tall, buxom, blonde St. Louis soprano named Helen Traubel. When he heard her sing he excitedly mopped his brow, advised her to apply for a job at Manhattan's Metropolitan. In 1937, when Conductor Damrosch's opera The Man without a Country was premiered during the Metropolitan's minor-league spring season, Helen Traubel sang its leading role, and springtime critics gave her top marks.

Last week, singing Sieglinde opposite such champions as Kirsten Flagstad, Kerstin Thorborg and Lauritz Melchior, Helen Traubel made her official Metropolitan debut. Manhattan's debutasters trooped in droves to hear her, stayed to cheer, for they heard one of the finest heavyweight Wagnerian soprano voices to turn up at the Metropolitan since Kirsten Flagstad's debut in 1935.

No sooner had this stir passed when another new U. S. singer caused another. No Wagnerian heavyweight, Soprano Harriet Henders (real name Henderson) made her Metropolitan debut as the soubrette, Sophie, in Richard Strauss's gay Rosenkavalier. Iowa-born and California-bred, Harriet Henders had gathered bouquets for eight years in most of Central Europe's leading opera houses, but remained almost unknown in her native U. S. A coy, roly-poly actress with fluid, round-edged top notes, she sang her part with veteran poise. She was tops in Sophies.

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