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For many a Chicagoan the opera season does not start until Mary Garden returns. This year she is particularly welcome, for Chicago's opera affairs are not in a happy state. Sopranos Rosa Raisa, Claudia Muzio, Lotte Lehmann, Frida Leider have been giving capable performances. But despite expectations the pretentious new house has not proved popular. Beauty is widely conceded to the building. On the northwest edge of the Loop, it rises from the murky Chicago River directly across from the unquestionably beautiful Chicago Daily News Building & Plaza. But the acoustics are not yet so good as in the famed old Auditorium. And it contains, apparently, a grave psychological error: In placing the boxes the architect seems to have forgotten that Society is an essential to successful opera. As in cinemansions the boxes are across the back almost in a straight line instead of in a deep horseshoe. The front railings are high. Socialites are far from the stage. Worse, they cannot be seen by the main floor audience and even find it hard to see one another. Business has been bad. Rear seats are often empty. It is said that the company is $150,000 behind last year in subscriptions. The Sunday matinee series has been discontinued "after a careful inquiry into costs and the probable income." Whether this can all be attributed to hard times is a matter of opinion. Certainly there has been no lack of sales effort in the best Insull manner. But critics contend that too much has been said about the "duty" of supporting the opera, too little about how good the operas are. Chicagoans, whether they approve of Mary Garden or not, agree that she is the one who puts life into the company. For 20 years she has done so. She went to Chi cago with her name made. She was one of four daughters born in Aberdeen, Scot land, to a Mr. & Mrs. Robert D. Garden. Mr. Garden, now a dignified old gentleman with a white goatee, migrated to the U. S., went into the bicycle business (later he was an executive of Fierce-Arrow Motor Car Co.). Mrs. Garden followed with the girls, lived in Brooklyn for a while, then in Chicopee Falls, Mass., then in Chicago. Mary was the determined, aggressive one of the lot. She learned to play the violin, at twelve played in a concert. Then she studied piano, practiced patiently five hours a day. An amateur performance of Trial by Jury in Chicago perhaps hinted first at her dramatic talents. But she wanted to be a singer. To Paris she went, lived with a French family, studied diligently. Her debut at the Opera Comique came at a time when she was practically penniless. She had been engaged to do a small part the following season, meanwhile was permitted to attend rehearsals. One night the soprano singing in the new opera Louise collapsed in the second act. The director remembered the girl who had been watching rehearsals, sent for her, asked if she could finish the performance. Mary Garden had never sung on a stage, never sung with orchestra. But she did not hesitate, said: "M. le Directeur, have no fear. I shall not fail." She recalls now trying postehaste to loop in the costume of the larger soprano, thinking: "My God, in all this huge place, isn't there anybody who has a pin?" Her performance created a sensation. Her voice was curiously husky, uneven, but she played the role with such singular understanding that she sold out 100 performances