Great Lover, The

Great Lover, The (1915), a play by Leo Ditrichstein and Frederic and Fanny Hatton. [Longacre Theatre, 245 perf.] Jean Paurel (Ditrichstein) is the world's greatest bass‐baritone, the highest paid, most glamorous star of New York's Gotham Opera Company. His most famous part is Don Giovanni, a role he is notorious for playing offstage as well as on. But at the height of his career his great voice fails, and he must stand in the wings listening to a new star challenge his supremacy. As his career fades away so do the women who were once only too willing to be his conquests. Jean sits alone in despair when the phone rings. The caller is a lady for whom he never could find time but with whom he now eagerly agrees to meet. Written entirely as a vehicle for one star, the George M. Cohan and Sam H. Harris production created a furor because the settings were designed to look precisely like rooms at the Metropolitan Opera House and the hero's name was so similar to that of the Met's great Don, Victor Maurel. Walter Prichard Eaton, despite some reservations, granted it “was about as sure fire as anything can be in the theatre.”