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When an honest-to-goodness five dollar banknote fluttered to the stage of the Academy last night while "Falstaff" was engaged in a bit of laughable love-making, opera-goers realized for the first time that Shakespeare's funny, fat man was the original "Butter-and-egg" boy of his times. For, of course, it is proverbial that when fat and fatuous financial fellows, now known as "butter-and-eggers," are amorously inclined, the money flies freely. But the discovery last night was as startlingly unexpected for Scotti in the title role as it was for the acute observers in the audience who saw it, perhaps only a few of whom realized that it was doubtless due to the excitement of some stage hand over Verdi's music, little realizing that his money would fall as manna on the principals in the performance.

That, however, was just an extra, with amusing incident in an evening crowded with comedy capers. For the Metropolitan Opera Company gave this rollicking work of Verdi's old age in an infectiously exuberant and effervescent fashion which obviously delighted the usual capacity audience. There was special fervor in the applause for Lawrence Tibbett when he took a curtain call alone after the first scene of the second act, recalling the enthusiasm which marked his debut in this selfsame role of Ford (no relation to Henry) season before last, both here and in New York. But there was virtually an ovation for Antonio Scotti, miracle man of the Metropolitan, whose capital characterization was a comic achievement of the first order, the more remarkable because of the striking contrast it presents to his sardonic Scarpia in "Tosca," or his kindly consul of "Butterfly," or his shuddersome Chim-Fang in "L'Oracolo," although that Leoni shocker has now been withdrawn.

Search by season: 1926-27

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