Music: Substitution

In the lobbies of the Metropolitan Opera House one night last week, a sign announcing a cast-substitution went up. Met-goers took it in automatically, passed on to their seats. Few of them had ever heard of substitute Soprano Roberta Peters, and for good reason: she had never sung in public before.

Twenty years old and cute as a Powers model, blue-eyed Roberta Peters, daughter of a Bronx shoe salesman, had been hired last January after an audition. Impresario Sol Hurok had brought her to the Met after hearing her sing in her teacher’s Manhattan studio. She was set to work on the coloratura role of the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Magic Flute, due for a Metropolitan Opera performance in early 1951. Like other neophytes at the Met, she spent the rest of her time attending classes in the Met’s affiliated Kathryn Turney Long Opera Courses, watching rehearsals, singing once in a while in rehearsal ensembles—until Manager Rudolf Bing tapped her on the shoulder last week, five hours before the curtain went up on the season’s first Don Giovanni.

Soprano Nadine Conner, scheduled to sing the role of Countrymaid Zerlina, had folded with food poisoning. Bing had to find a substitute fast. Roberta had memorized the role and, at 5 ft. 2 in., was a neat fit in Conner’s costume. After an afternoon of cramming sessions with Stage Director Herbert Graf, Assistant Manager Max Rudolf and some final tips just an hour before curtain time from Conductor Fritz Reiner, Roberta was waved onstage. She turned out to be just about the only bright light in an otherwise lusterless performance.

Conductor Reiner’s tempos were fast enough, but even so, it was a Don done in slow motion. Roberta had to take her first note against a Don (Baritone Paul Schoeffler) singing off-key; she hit it on the nose. Acting with confidence and pinpointing her coloratura targets in a clear, clean little voice, Roberta managed to win the biggest hand of the evening.

“I was tense inside,” Roberta told a circle of congratulators after the final curtain. Said grateful Rudi Bing: “You were very nice. Now hurry home and get a good night’s sleep.”

Rudi Bing himself had some matters that would bear sleeping on. He had done a bang-up job on his two new productions of Don Carlo and The Flying Dutchman (TIME, Nov. 20). But after a sleepwalking Don Giovanni (and a ragged Traviata two weeks ago), it was clear that some of the Met’s old productions needed tuning up, too.