Operatic Cold War

When Contralto Margarete Klose sang in Jenufa at Berlin's Municipal Opera, she performed excellently. But along with the applause came a shrill of whistles and a thicket of catcalls. It had just been announced that Singer Klose, like Baritone Josef Hermann before her, was switching over to Berlin's State Opera under a three-year contract. On top of the reaction of Municipal Opera's fans, its famed director, Carl Ebert, 67, himself snapped an angry farewell. Its gist: his artists should not only be good singers but good citizens. Once they have gone, Klose and Hermann will not be allowed to sing again for the company, even as guests. The reason for all the fuss was simply that the Municipal Opera is in Berlin's British sector while the State Opera is across the line in the Russian.

When the war ended, the Russians, bent on a big Kultur offensive, took over what was left of the grand old State Opera company. They paid its casts handsomely and footed the bills for the best in costumes and scenery. Since performers and listeners had no trouble crossing sectors, the State Opera quickly restored its name as Berlin's first company. Now the Russians are even rebuilding the Unter den Linden theater, and providing it with a stage fully equipped for all the massive magnificence that Germans love.

A Tossup. But in West Berlin, the remains of the old Municipal Opera company struggled to survive in a house whose ceiling was still perforated by bomb fragments. The Western occupation authorities did not include opera in their budget, so Municipal singers got starvation salaries. The few able conductors and singers who stuck with it did so only out of loyalty to the company or because their political consciences forbade them to sing for the Communists. Still, the Municipal Opera made out, and when the rival companies mounted simultaneous productions of, say, Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, it was a tossup which was superior (although neither achieved the standard of the old Berlin State Opera, New York's Metropolitan or Milan's La Scala).

The Municipal Opera, never able to shake deficits, dissensions and accusations of poor management, suffered a serious blow last fall when its director, Heinz Tietjen, retired. The company turned to Ebert, who gained fame as a director of the standout Glyndebourne Opera. It was able to lure him from the University of Southern California, where he had taught opera for six years. "It was heartbreaking to educate young singers only to have them faced with unemployment," Ebert said, in explaining why he left the comparatively soft job for a tough one. "There just aren't enough companies to take them in the United States." There was also a strong sentimental reason. Ebert had once before directed the Municipal Opera, but left Germany in 1933, after refusing the Nazis' request that he take over all German opera houses as part of Hitler's cultural front.

A Gap. With a reputation as an artist, a builder and a fighter, Carl Ebert has performed thus far like the man who can carry Municipal safely through the melodic cold war with the Communists' State Opera. "I can't match them with quantity," he says intensely. "I don't have the East's propaganda money. But I will do it with quality. I can offer performances by a company that is good as a whole. It is a question of teamwork."

Ebert needs $4,000,000 to rebuild the old Municipal Opera house, says he "will try to get enough money in the United States to goad authorities here to give me the rest." The bulky, tired repertory needs overhauling. And Ebert needs more good singers. The defection of Singers Klose and Hermann leaves a gap that will be hard to fill, he admits, "but even the finest singers can be replaced. The world has had to face that fact every time a great singer has died."

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