Metropolitan Mutiny

Like sea captains, opera impresarios have to rule with an iron hand. And no crew that ever sailed the seas could be more unruly than the average opera house's staff of strutting tenors and temperamental prima donnas. Last week, just as the Metropolitan Opera Company was launching a public drive for $1,000,000 to help buy and refit the aged opera house where it puts on its performances,* grey-haired, wiry General Manager Edward Johnson was faced with the first big mutiny of his career.

The trouble started last November with the death of hawk-faced Conductor Artur Bodanzky, long the Metropolitan's principal Wagner conductor (TIME, Dec. 4).

Instead of hiring another world-famed maestro to take Bodanzky's place, General Manager Johnson picked a talented, 27-year-old stripling named Erich Leinsdorf, who had been brought from Austria in 1937 as Bodanzky's assistant. Though Manhattan critics admitted that Leinsdorf was not bad for a beginner they com plained that the Met was no place for a beginner. There were rumors that the Met's stars liked Mr. Leinsdorf no better than the critics did. The pot simmered. Last week the lid blew off.

First, massive Tenor Lauritz Melchior publicly denounced Leinsdorf's wayward tempos and lack of experience, found him "not yet ready to be senior conductor of the finest department of the greatest opera house in the world." Next, famed Diva Kirsten Flagstad, who was staying away from the opera house with grippe, hinted to friends that she might not go back unless Conductor Leinsdorf was replaced. It was no secret to the Manhattan music world that Diva Flagstad was backing a favorite young maestro of her own: U. S.-born Conductor Edwin McArthur, who had been conducting all her performances in Chicago and Los Angeles. Wailed Mme Flagstad: "Since Mr. Leinsdorf is inexperienced in playing Wagner, he watches the music. I see his arms moving, but I can't tell where the music is."

Finally General Manager Johnson sounded off. "There are some old boats in the company," hissed he, ". . . who, because they have exalted egos since they have no competition for their roles, would like to be dictators of the Metropolitan. The operatic art and this institution are greater than these, and will be here, along with Mr. Leinsdorf, long after they are gone. . . . He will be so acclaimed in a few years that they won't want to remember that they opposed him. . . . Opera singers," said disgusted ex-Opera Singer Johnson, "are children."

When it was announced, after all this fuss & feathers, that both Conductor Leinsdorf and Tenor Melchior would perform last week in Gotterdammerung, operagoers jammed the Metropolitan to see the fun. Tenor Melchior was so nervous that he got his eagle-winged Norse warrior's helmet on backwards, but he sang as though he was out to bust his buttons. At the end of the act the audience clapped coldly for Tenor Melchior, gave Conductor Leinsdorf an ovation.

By week's end it looked as though General Manager Johnson had quelled the mutiny. It was announced that Diva Flagstad would be back to sing Walkure on Feb 8. Massive Tenor Melchior had apologized. Said Impresario Johnson: "The Metropolitan Opera is bigger than any individual. . . . Let's not bother with a tempest in a teapot."

*Since 1891 the Metropolitan Opera House has been the property of a corporation of boxholders known as Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Co., has been leased to the Metropolitan Opera Company for its performances.

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