For eleven years now I have been enjoying Luckies in this country. As I write this, I am in my dressing room at the Metropolitan opera. I have just completed a performance of 'Le Coq d'Or'. The Lucky I am smoking is one of the rewards of Victory! And I don't feel the slightest worry about smoking affecting my throat. For, like other opera singers, I find that a light smoke suits both my taste and my throat.
Ezio Pinza (1892-1957) reportedly finds Lucky Strike to “suit both my taste and my throat.” Born and raised in Italy, Pinza made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1926, and continued to sing with the Met in over 50 roles for 22 seasons. In this advertisement Pinza announces that he writes this endorsement (which he most certainly did not write himself) as he smokes a Lucky Strike. The cigarette, he says, is “one of the rewards of victory” for the completion of a performance. This ad and the others in the Metropolitan Opera series of Lucky Strike ads lead consumers to believe that opera singers are puffing on cigarettes between acts while maintaining perfect voices. At the age of 64, Pinza passed away from a stroke.
