Hello at the Met

Two weeks before its opener last fall, the Metropolitan Opera found itself in a jam. Boris Christoff, the Bulgarian basso who was scheduled to sing King Philip in the opening-night Don Carlo, had been turned down for a visa. Met Manager Rudolf Bing had to gamble, and gamble fast. He staked his show on a 28-year-old singer named Cesare Siepi, who was almost unknown outside Italy. Handsome young Basso Siepi has turned out to be one of the best bets any opera manager ever made.

A golden basso cantante (a lyric bass rather than a growler) with a natural authority onstage, Siepi won himself an opening-night ovation as the dignified king in Don Carlo. Then, a month later, he shed the dignity like a shirt, became an inspired and pompous fool as Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville. He turned next to Mephistopheles in Faust, sang and acted with his customary conviction.

Last week Siepi sang his fourth role at the Met: Colline in Puccini's La Boheme. Said Bachelor Siepi, with relief: "Finally I have a chance to play a young man. Mi facio bello! [I shall make myself beautiful]." He played and sang his small role to the hilt, and when it was over he collected the same stout applause he has been getting all season.

Born in Milan, six-footer Siepi originally aspired to be a boxer. He never fought professionally, finally gave up his amateur bouts because his mother grieved so much over his cut and bruised features. He had done his first singing in his school chorus, but did not decide to become a singer until he was 18, when his school friend, Giuseppe di Stefano (now a Met tenor), urged him to enter a competition in Florence ("It's free . . . there are girls . . ."). Though he knew only two arias, Siepi won the competition. He made his debut in Rigoletto two months later in a provincial opera house. When La Scala reopened in 1946, Siepi sang in the opening performance, soon came to be considered "the pillar" among La Scala's bass singers. A quick study, he now sings 40 roles.

Siepi had to cancel his engagement at La Scala to sing at the Met this season. Last week he was set to disappoint La Scala again; he plans to return to the Met next season. Said La Scala's Franco Capuana sadly: "Here all the theaters want him. We will suffer much by his absence. America has gained."

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