Germany sent two of its favored singers and Manhattan its ablest musical critics. Bouncing early from her White House bed. Mrs. Roosevelt put on a tricorne hat and tippet and also headed for Philadelphia. There the old Academy of Music was jam-packed to the doors. In the box beside Mrs. Roosevelt sat Curtis Bok, the Philadelphia Orchestra's new fair-haired president. Behind them, with Curtis Bok's mother, was Esther Everett Lape, Curtis Bok's secretary. Conspicuously absent was fair-haired Leopold Stokowski.
The Philadelphia Orchestra was experimenting with opera. The players had relinquished the stage...