House Afire

Last week for the first time Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera Company admitted what everyone already knew: that it was at the end of its resources. Chairman Paul Drennan Cravath frankly announced that there were insufficient funds to assure another season. The directors are to meet next week to determine the Company's fate.

In such a fix most impresarios would give up in despair. But Giulio Gatti-Casazza, who until this year has run the Metropolitan without deficit, did not sit back dejectedly. He issued an appeal for the Company to save itself. He begged every member, singers and stage hands alike, to sacrifice himself regardless of contracts and rights. Said he: "When a house is on fire one does not send for lawyers or notaries. . . . I offer to serve [the Metropolitan] in the coming season with necessary reductions of salary which circumstances require, and even without salary if this be necessary."

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