Music: Optimus

Last week in Manhattan, newspapers, billboards flaunted an advertisement: The World’s Greatest Tenor would give a concert. The billboards carried pictures of a round-faced Italian with small, black eyes like pants buttons—a picture of Beniamino Gigli. He would sing, so he announced, favorite arias and “there is no tenor living who sings these melodious arias like Gigli. To hear any one of them is worth the price of your ticket.”

Many flocked to hear him, saw a stuffy little man, like a bantam rooster, come on the stage, saw him swell out his bosom, and open his mouth. They shut their eyes then, listened to melting outbursts rich in melody, sung in the approved Italian manner, lyrically, lovingly. They opened their eyes to see him lead on a little Italian child, ten-year-old Rina, his daughter. She played an accompaniment for him correctly, laboriously. They heard him sing again without distraction, heard him take perilous notes bravely, truly, cling to them fondly, heard pianissimos incredibly tender, applauded, many of them, shouted bravos, sat; others, mum, felt their praise unneeded to swell the confidence of the World’s Greatest Tenor.