New Houses

For years the Metropolitan Opera Com pany has talked of a new opera house. So, but for a lesser time, has the Chicago Civic Opera Company. In Manhattan, however, Chairman Otto H. Kahn of the Metropolitan directors was thwarted in his choice of site, whereas in Chicago, President Samuel Insull let nothing interfere. In consequence when the Chicago opera ended its home season last week, it ended also its residence in the Auditorium which 40 years ago was dedicated by President Benjamin Harrison and Vice President Levi P. Morton, with incidental music by Adelina Patti. Romeo et Juliet had been the first opera, with Patti as Juliet, and Romeo was the valedictory last week, with Edith Mason for heroine. Next season will open a proud 42-story building on Wacker Drive.

Coincidentally, in Manhattan, murmurings over a new opera house mounted to a front-page roar. Confirmed were the reports that John Davison Rockefeller Jr. had leased from Columbia University a sector of Manhattan extending from 48th to 51st Streets between Fifth and Sixth Avenues (TIME, Dec. 31), and that he had done so with a new opera house in mind. But the Metropolitan's directors continued to ponder their selection of a site.