What, No Opera?

The news was so shocking that at first no one believed it. But there it was, on Page One, with no ifs or buts: the Metropolitan Opera had called it quits for the 1948-49 season. Reason: it was losing money too fast.

There had been hints of trouble. Last July, the Met's directors announced that the condition of the U.S.'s No. 1 cultural pride & glory was "critical." But few took the announcement seriously: hadn't the Met cried wolf before? Besides, the 65-year-old Met had just had three rare, glorious years (1944, 1945 and 1946) in the black.

Last season, the house was 97% sold out; almost half a million dollars had poured in from radio, rented concessions (e.g., Sherry's famous bar), and a new recording arrangement with Columbia Records. But even so, said the directors, the Met's rising cost of living had plunged it $220,000 into the red.

In shutting down, the Met's 38-man board of directors blamed the unions. The Met management has claimed for a long time that the unions "have us over a barrel," and that the unions prolong negotiations so long that when contracts are finally signed the Met has little time to plan its season properly. But for all its mutterings about the iron hand of labor and the burden of its big payroll, the Met management itself had not done all it might to simplify its staging, by using unit sets instead of cumbersome pieces that take 80 men to get in place.

The Directors Say No. In July the twelve unions which man the Met were told that before the board would consider raises, the Met would close its doors. Most of the unions forthwith abandoned their demands. But two--the musicians' (which has had no wage increases in two years) and the wardrobe attendants'--insisted that the Met at least give them some kind of unemployment insurance. As a non-profit organization the Met pays no real-estate taxes, deducts no social-security benefits.

The musicians offered to play a couple of nights without any pay to defray part of the added cost for all of the Met's 600-odd employees. Last week the directors said no. Then the board informed the press that "to increase [the] deficit by meeting further demands . . . would be imprudent to the point of irresponsibility." And with that, the board of directors called off the season. Said Opera Association President Charles M. Spofford: "I guess the unions just didn't take us seriously."

The Met had been in trouble before, but it had usually found a way out, even during the depression. The late opera-loving Banker Otto H. Kahn, longtime board chairman, used to shake his white head at the losses, say "That's all right, that's all right," and dash off six-figure checks. The U.S. public, when asked, had also rushed to the rescue; once when it was asked to donate $1,000,000 to buy the Met's building, it oversubscribed by $57,000. Yet when opera lovers last week suggested raising a fund to "save the Met," the board was frigidly uninterested. Obviously the board thought that there was more at stake than merely getting through the 1948-49 season.

Maybe Another Year. In the old days, Caruso was paid $2,500 a night--2 1/2 times what the Met now pays its Melchiors and Ponses. But other expenses had risen sharply. Most show-wise Broadwayites agreed with the directors that the Met couldn't safely raise the price of its orchestra seats above the present $7.50. The antiquated horseshoe house seats less than 3,500, one-third the capacity of municipal auditoriums in such cities as Cleveland, St. Louis, Seattle. As long ago as 1925 Otto Kahn had told the management it needed a new house--but the board still has done nothing about it.

Without opera, management could easily rent the hall to ballets, concerts and rallies every night of the season. Thus only the Met's employees--and the operagoing public--really stood to lose by the shutdown. The unions were sure the Met was out to get them. Obviously stunned by the shutdown, they met together this week to see whether, by modifying their demands, they could change the board's mind. If they did, the Met might yet open this fall, possibly several weeks late. But the board expressed no such hope: it promised only to "consider ways & means" of resuming "another year."

Perhaps to the board's surprise, the public seemed to find it as much to blame as the unions. Said the New York Daily News: "If the present management can't make a go of the Met we won't coax them to stay . . . if the Met show is to go on, let's bring in some real pros to manage it."

One of the Met's best clients had money trouble, too. Last week, the U.S.'s best ballet company, Ballet Theatre, also called it quits for 1948. In its nine seasons, Ballet Theatre toured the U.S., produced brilliant and expensive new ballets. Most of the deficits had been made up by Director Lucia Chase (heiress of a carpet fortune), who also danced leading roles in the company. Her estimated loss so far: $2,000,000. Ballet Theatre would start up again perhaps next year, said Miss Chase, but only if someone else came forward with a little money.

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