Opera in the Black

A short, grey-moustached man stood, looking pleased, behind the standees in Manhattan's spacious, echoey Center Theater, and watched the red velours curtains close in front of the shadowy vault scene of Verdi's Aida. He had a right to be pleased. For the 150 members of his troupe, it was merely the last perform-ance of another season, but for Fortune Gallo it was a milestone. His San Carlo Opera Company had wound up its 30th season, giving the U.S. public opera at popular prices, and without deficits.

In a world where opera is looked on as champagne & caviar for the rich, this was a feat. The San Carlo has never had wealthy backers or subsidies. Its goal has been low-priced opera for mass audiences. In its 30 seasons it has played 9,000 times to 19,000,000 people; and except for its first year, when it lost $700, it has made money. Though its performances some-times creak, and its singing is as uneven as a stockmarket graph, it has kept a wide public happy.

Behind its success lies the colorful shrewdness of Impresario Fortune Gallo. Unlike top-flight opera companies, Gallo's San Carlo keeps away from operas which are artistic monuments but financial hazards. For its 20,000-mile tour this season, 13 operas were enough. Seven of them (Aida, Carmen, Faust, Trovatore, Rigoletto, Traviata, Boheme) are such longtime favorites that Gallo's troupe has given them more than 1,000 times apiece.

Operaman Gallo keeps out of the red by paring expenses to the bone. Instead of having an executive staff, he handles all decisions and details himself, working at a rolltop desk in a mousy Broadway office building. He pays no fancy salaries: minimum for principals is $40 a performance. On the road, San Carlo's orchestra numbers only 23, the total company 100-odd. Expense-conscious Fortune Gallo once spied the orchestra's harpist strolling down the street while a Rigoletto performance was going on, angrily inquired why he was not in the pit. To the harpist's reply that Rigoletto has no harp part, Gallo mumbled, "I'm not paying a harpist to walk the streets," ordered a harp part written in. Another time, Impresario Gallo avoided the expense of through Pullmans to Toronto by sending his troupe to Scranton, Pa. on excursion rates, thence by sleepers to Buffalo, thence by day coach. Saved: $600.

Fortune Gallo was a dreamy, 16-year-old Italian lad when he came to the U.S. His first job was at $3 a week, in an Italian bank, but by 1906 he had blossomed out as a band manager. When Mario Lombardi's South American opera company got tangled in difficulties in St. Louis, Gallo was called in to help push the operatic ship off the reefs.

The refloating brought him a fat contract, hoisted him into the opera management business for good. Last year he received his most prestigious appointment: as managing director of the white-elephantine Chicago Opera. He and Tenor Giovanni Martinelli, artistic director, put on a season that lopped the annual loss from $125,000 to $18,000.

Fortune Gallo, at 64, is proud of his balanced-budget opera company, proud that the San Carlo has given many U.S. singers (among them Queena Mario, Richard Bonelli, eight others who graduated to the Metropolitan) their first big opportunities. His latest cause for pride is pretty, blonde Soprano Dorothy Kirsten, who brought a fresh, appealing voice and promising style to her Mimi, Micaela and Nedda during the last fortnight. A former telephone girl from Livingston, N.J., she later did secretarial work and scrubbed floors to pay for singing lessons. Grace Moore met her in a radio studio, took her in hand, got her into the Chicago Opera Company. Says Fortune Gallo of her: "You will find her in the Metropolitan one day. She has got what it takes."

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