Music: The Last Rose of Flotow

Richard Tucker, the Metropolitan Opera's great tenor, marched to the front of the stage, fixed his audience with a sour look, and let forth a flood of sound:

It was just a gay adventure,

That was all it meant to you:

Just a game, a stray adventure . . .

Just a fling without emotion,

Just another rendezvous.

The rendezvous, as it happened, was one of the most improbable in recent Met history: back to the stage after a grateful absence of 32 years had come the glass-beaded old operetta known as Martha, or The Fair...

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