Music: Fractured Arias

One Sunday morning a musical press-agent and thwarted opera singer named Alix Williamson was indulging her favorite whim: lolling in her bathtub, lazily singing arias from grand opera. Perhaps because she was singing out of tune, she began to concentrate on the words. How silly they could sound in English, she thought. As pressagents will, she began to turn her meditations to some useful end. Result: a series of double-meaning cartoons, in the manner of “Fractured French,” providing the latest spoof of a much-spoofed medium.

Some of Pressagent Williamson’s ideas were on the ribald side, e.g., “Dove sono?” (“Where have they gone?”), from The Marriage of Figaro, would show a girl who has dropped her falsies. Others were plain wacky, e.g., “Parigi, o cara” (“Paris, my dear”), from Traviata, would show one lady demonstrating a strange new garment to another. “Caro name” (“Dear name”), from Rigoletto, would show a sugar daddy signing a fat check for his girl friend. Pressagent Williamson (whose clients have included Gladys Swarthout, Ezio Pinza, Helen Traubel) persuaded Austrian-born Artist Susan Perl to put her ideas on paper, found a California manufacturer to print the cartoons on a set of “sip ‘n snack” paper napkins. Price: $1 for 36 napkins. Caro name of the series: Grand Uproar.