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<h2>THE SURVIVAL OF THE FATTEST</h2> 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[Pg 211] 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. And fat robs the tragic ending of its depression. The sight of a normally-built woman expiring of heartbreak, or any other favorite operatic death, would be most distressing; but[Pg 212] the spectacle of a four-hundred pound consumptive, on a thickly-padded canvas-and-steel rock, breathing forth her everlasting last, like a moping walrus on a cake of ice—such a spectacle does not disturb us in the least, for we realize that all she needs is a fan. Indeed, the fattest never die. After a prima donna is no longer able to manoeuver over the operatic stage, she toddles along the carpet of the concert platform, tugging her train like a double-expansion freight-engine, while the audience applauds from sheer amazement. She is an immense success—even people sitting behind posts can see her. Thin singers perish and are forgotten (there never were any, anyhow); but the gloriously fat ones sing on forever. When Judgment Day comes and the angel blows his trumpet, he will have to toot it with Wagnerian fury plus Straussian blatancy if he hopes to be heard above the aigretted and tiaraed dodos who are still on the yell. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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