A year ago when Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera was feeling the first serious effects of Depression, Franz von Suppe's light opera Boccaccio was taken out and dusted (TIME, Jan. 12, 1931). Soprano Maria Jeritza put on tights and the box-office felt temporary relief. Opera companies the world over have been lightening their repertoires lately. The Metropolitan's experiment proved so successful that it turned again to von Suppe, presented last week his Donna Juanita.
Donna Juanita, like Boccaccio, is the sort of operetta people enjoyed 50 years ago. It has a cluttered plot in which a French cadet (Jeritza) disguises himself as a woman, foils the British enemy and emerges a lieutenant. There are the usual marches, waltz tunes, love duets and. as in the remodeled Boccaccio, asides in colloquial English. Boccaccio was good for eight performances because the production was brisk, because earnest German singers looked funny cavorting about the stage, because light opera becomes the Viennese Jeritza. Donna Juanita should prosper briefly for the same reasons. The production is even faster, more up-to-date. The Metropolitan's conservative ballet appears barelegged. Jeritza is gorgeous in a black & gold court costume, magnificently casual as she steps up to the sacred prompter's box and uses it like a brass rail. Neatest tricks: a high dive by the big soprano, relaxed as any trained ballerina, straight into the arms of Tenor Marek Windheim and Baritone Louis D'Angelo; a shooting exhibition by Assistant Conductor Carlo Edwards who borrowed a shotgun from a neighboring speak-easy after the show, potted some 30 balloons which had escaped during a carnival scene to the tip top of the Metropolitan's dome.