“Why should an artist wait until her career is ended to write her reminiscences?” cries Maria Jeritza* on the first page of her memoirs.† She has answered the question by publishing them in midcareer.

“The greatest ovation in my 50 years of concert going,” said Mrs. William Randolph Hearst Sr. Said Jeritza: “A rabbit could have scared me away. I went to the post like a race horse which wears ...