Bye for Chicago

Not only in the financial firmament is Samuel Insull a fallen angel. Last week the trustees of the Chicago Opera met for 15 minutes to accept his resignation from their number. Then they announced "definitely but reluctantly" that there would be no Chicago Opera next season. What was needed, they frankly said, was what he had been, a "magnificent angel." Nearest man that Chicago could think of was Banker Charles Gates Dawes who, since his return from England this year and from Reconstruction Finance Corp. in Washington last month, has been thought of by Chicagoans for all sorts of jobs, right up to the Presidency of the U. S. Banker Dawes is a trustee and vice president of Chicago Civic Opera Company, but leaving last week's meeting he had nothing to say. The Chicago Opera has accumulated many debts--scraps of old deficits, and last season's deficit which was estimated between $500,000 and $700,000. Before opera is to be resumed in Chicago the present corporation must be liquidated, a new one formed. More complicated is the future of the Opera building at No. 20 Wacker Drive, a separate corporation. Chicago Opera contracts have been on a yearly basis. An appeal for $500,000 failing last January, no new ones were made. Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera took its pick of the available artists, signed up for next year Soprano Frida Leider, Tenor Tito 'Schipa, Baritone Richard Bonelli (TIME, May 30). Lately the Metropolitan engaged also German Soprano Lotte Lehmann and stately Contralto Maria Olszewska. The Philadelphia Opera will probably get Tenor Paul Althouse for at least part of its season, and Baritone John Charles Thomas who will also sing in concert and radio.

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