Word: jussi
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...Metropolitan Opera's under-lunged Italian tenor wing has been huffing & puffing, in a vain attempt to bring the house down, ever since 1941. That was when the Met's Swedish mainstay, Jussi Björling, was refused a transit visa to cross Nazi-occupied countries. Björling stayed in Sweden, packed the red and gold Royal Opera House in Stockholm. Last week 34-year-old Tenor Björling reached the U.S. by plane, the first European artist to return to the Met's roster since the war began...
...shortage in its chief stock in trade, fine voices. Unexpected blows last season were the loss of its greatest artist and box-office draw, Kirsten Flagstad (holed up or held up in Norway); its next-best Wanerian soprano, Marjorie Lawrence (victim of paralysis); Tenors Jussi Björling (stranded in Sweden) and Tito Schipa (recalled to Italy). Like a consistently losing team, the Met did not attract packed grandstands...
Tenors the Met has had aplenty, but most are strictly platers. This year it had to scratch two: Jussi Bjoerling (because he could not get out of his native Sweden); Tito Schipa (because he returned to his native Italy at the bidding of Count Ciano). New tenors were Kurt Baum, a personable Czech (onetime heavyweight boxing champion of Prague) who showed good form in a bit in Der Rosenkavalier, and Jan Peerce, a veteran of Radio City Music Hall, who showed even more in his debut as the hero of Traviata...
...Metropolitan had taken a deep breath, returned Masked Ball to its rightful Sweden. Riccardo (Tenor Jussi Bjoerling) was further identified on the program as Gustave III. But the Met's restyling stopped there. The chorus, singing in Italian, hailed the king as "son of England." The conspirators (historically Counts Horn and Warting) were still Samuel and Tom, although no longer black. In three out of Masked Ball's five acts, the scenery (by one Mstislav Dobujinski) was the traditional Metropolitan mud color. But the 18th-Century costumes were excellent. The production cost about $35,000. The opening night...
...debutant gave thrills to the audience as well as to himself: stocky honey-voiced Swedish Tenor Jussi Bjoerling who had appeared three times previously with the Chicago Opera. Since 1932, when famed Tenor Beniamino Gigli was painfully extracted after a tiff over a salary cut, the Metropolitan had been chewing its tenor arias with bare gums. Thirty years ago when the Met had Caruso, Bonci and Slezak, Tenor Bjoerling would have been as superfluous as a wisdom tooth. But as the French poet Rodolfo in La Boheme, Swede Bjoerling took his top notes in the best Italian manner. His hearers...