Music: Tenor Returns

Seven years ago, Beniamino Gigli, the tops in Italian tenors, left Manhattan’s Metropolitan Opera House in a huff over a salary cut. Deploring his attitude (his pay was rumored to be almost $3,000 a performance), the Met’s managers tried many substitutes but found nobody who could fill the bill. Last week Tenor Gigli was welcomed back to the Met by a shouting throng. Critics still deplored his garlicky mannerisms and found the part of Radames in Aida unsuited to him, but had to admit that Tenor Gigli’s singing was the finest Italian tenoring they had heard since he last sang in Manhattan.