He has come, he has come

On this day in 1942 conductor Sir Thomas Beecham made his Metropolitan Opera debut conducting a double bill of Phoebus and Pan (Bach’s Cantata Der Streit zwischen) and Rimsky-Korsakovs Coq d’Or.

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Account of the performance in The New York Sun:

Rosa Bok Hurt During Opera

Metropolitan Soprano Goes On With Show Despite Brain Concussion.

Rosa Bok, coloratura soprano, is in the Post Graduate Hospital with a brain concussion, suffered in an accident on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House during last Thursday night’s performance of “Coq d’Or,” it was learned today. In the final act of the Rimsky-Korsakoff opera, Mme. Bok, as the Queen of Shemakhan, and Ezio Pinza, basso, in the role of King Dodon, were to have made their entrance in a high, two-wheeled cart. As the cart moved into the wings it upset. Mme. Bok was thrown on her head. Mr. Pinza landed on his right side and suffered painful bruises.

Few if any in the large audience, before which Sir Thomas Beecham, British conductor, was making his debut, were aware of the accident, which occurred just out of sight in the left wings of the stage, but all noticed that Mme. Bok and Mr. Pinza made their entrance afoot, instead of in the customary cart. Mme. Bok went through her part in the final act without missing a single cue, and took six curtain calls before she collapsed. Later, she is reported to have told friends that she had no recollection whatever of anything that occurred after she fell from the cart.

Condition Grew Worse.

After an examination by the Metropolitan’s house doctor in her dressing room, Mme Bok was taken to her home in the Esplanade Hotel, 305 West End Avenue, where her physician treated her. On Friday morning, her condition was such that Dr. Henry H. Ritter, a specialist, was called. He immediately ordered her taken to the hospital. Mme. Bok’s feat of performing the third act of “Coq d’Or,” despite the accident, is all the more remarkable in that she had never before sung the role. Furthermore, she had definitely been cast in it only four days prior to the performance as a substitute for the ailing Bidu Sayao, Brazilian soprano, who had originally been scheduled to sing it.

“Coq d’Or” is to be presented tomorrow night in Philadelphia, and the American soprano, Josephine Antoine, will take Mme. Bok’s place in the cast. The Metropolitan management, despite Mme. Bok’s injuries, in its advance programs, issued today, still lists her as one of the performers in next Sunday night’s concert, and in the performance of “Coq d’Or” scheduled for Saturday night, January 31. Mme. Bok, well-known in European opera houses, made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on December 11 in “The Magic Flute.”