Even people sitting behind pillars can enjoy her.
[THE SURVIVAL OF THE FATTEST]
There is no lightweight championship in opera. Stars of the first magnitude are of very considerable magnitude—300 pounds and up. In this class are the expensive prima donnas and heroic tenors (the term "heroic" referring to their efforts to move about the stage). The second magnitude—250 to 299 pounds—includes "jilted beauty" mezzo-sopranos and "hated rival" baritones. The third magnitude (of which no one takes any notice)—under 250 pounds—is made up of "confidante" contraltos and "noble father" bassos.
Thus, it will readily be seen that fat and fame are synonymous. For, in navigating the high C's, latitude is far more important than longitude.
Italian opera was made possible by the discovery of spaghetti, the serpentine food that produces coloratura tissue. A few miles of this swallowed daily will keep the palate leggiero and the figure larghissimo.
In like manner, beer is responsible for the national opera of Germany. Who would have heard of Wagner if Pilsener had never been invented? Where could Wagner have found his massive Brunhildes, his slow-dying Tristans?
Here lies the secret of the failure of our national music drama—we have spaghetti opera and beer opera, but no opera built on an American food. Emaciated from a diet of pebbly cereals and grape juice, our art still awaits the invention of the great American fattener.
For fat constitutes the wonder of opera. When a diva who looks like a hippo surprises us by singing like a canary—that is something remarkable. When a languid mass of blubber, for whom the very act of standing would seem a supreme accomplishment, displays the lung energy of a steam calliope and the vocal endurance of a peanut-stand whistle—we are astonished, overcome.