Met's Metamorphosis

(See front cover)

In jewels and white, black & nondescript ties, more than 2,000 members and guests of Manhattan's year-old Opera Guild swept last week into the old Metropolitan Opera House for the second "at home" in its history. Edward Johnson, the "Met's" affable general manager, welcomed them, introduced the company's new artists. Mrs. August Belmont, chairman of the Guild, disclosed that it had gained 500 new members since this time last year, pledged the Opera 25% more support. Rose Bampton sang two Strauss lieder. Radio Announcer Graham McNamee made arch announcements for a burlesque of opera in 2000 A. D. wherein Dancer Paul Draper, as "Gohengrin, the Flying Dutch-man," arrived in an airplane instead of a swan-boat, twinkle-toed around his bride while the Orchestra played Wagner's Wedding March in swingtime. A chorus from New York's schools thundered the Soldiers' Chorus from Faust, climaxing it with a lunge towards the footlights and an unintentional Communist salute. Enthralled by Lucrezia Bori's excerpts from La Boheme and Baritone Tibbett's splendid singing, the huge party released itself in a loud Star-Spangled Banner, pressed backstage to admire a new $5,000 cyclorama.

Though their party was mainly slapstick, the Guild had earned it by more than a year of hard work. In that time they had gone a long way towards restoring the Metropolitan's prestige to what it was in pre-Depression years. The season beginning Dec. 21 may well end without a deficit. Those who celebrated last week* could remember the end of an era in Manhattan opera. To them belonged much of the credit for the beginning of a new.

New Era. The old era closed in April 1935 when Giulio Gatti-Casazza took down his nameplate and stepped forever out of the general manager's office. For 27 years, Gatti had laid down the law to the most famous opera company in the world. He had seen that company once proud & secure. He had cut down his budget on high-priced singers. He had watched the Met struggle through Depression years by shortening its season, humble itself in a desperate tin-cup campaign. Few weeks before Gatti's resignation, the harassed Opera Board signed over its independence to the Juilliard Musical Foundation for $150,000. In return the Board agreed to raise an additional $100,000, to admit Juilliard bigwigs to their council, to increase regular attendance by 10%, to append to the regular season a "popular-priced" one in which U. S. artists might air their talents and perhaps earn winter engagements.

First sign of Juilliard influence was the appointment of Herbert Witherspoon, old-time Metropolitan basso and later a member of the Juilliard teaching staff, as Gatti's successor. General Manager Witherspoon had worn his title for two weeks when he dropped dead of coronary thrombosis. Tenor Edward Johnson, long a popular favorite, stepped immediately into the post. Confronting him were union difficulties, many an important contract, many that had not been signed.

Johnson was no stranger to the Metropolitan. For 13 years he had kept his eminence there as an important romantic tenor, created more roles than any other tenor alive. Romantic ladies still heave when they recall his dreamy Peter Ibbetson, his wistful Pelleas, his tender Romeo. Forthwith he settled down to the more excruciating task of playing Romeo to the box office, the Opera Board and the biggest congress of temperament known to man.

There were snags in that courtship. Ever since Caruso died and Farrar quit the Met, its Italian and French wings needed new blood. Witherspoon had planned to go abroad after fresh talent, dropped dead on the eve of his sailing. Johnson's sailing was delayed six weeks. By that time many a top-notch singer had been engaged, and last year's French and Italian performances had to string along with as little life as ever.

Hitches arose with Pons, Ponselle, Tibbett. Witherspoon had thought they wanted too much money, could not come to terms with them. It took the Johnson tact to re-engage them. The new singers, many of whom Johnson inherited with his job, turned out to be another problem. Out of 19, only two achieved real success. Australian Soprano Marjorie Lawrence sang Brunnehilde dramatically, if unevenly, startled operagoers by mounting a horse in Gotterdammerung and galloping off stage as Wagner prescribed. Scrawny Swedish Gertrud Wettergren proved to be a siren as Amneris in Aida, a sensitive Brangane.

Some of the newcomers were given an opportunity to win their spurs in French and Italian operas, some in the popular-priced auxiliary season demanded by Juilliard. Most smashing popular-priced success was a lively performance of The Bartered Bride in English.

Whatever they thought of the spring season, people were more enthusiastic last winter than they had been since Depression. For this Soprano Kirsten Flagstad did more than her share. The big, blonde Norwegian had blazed overnight into Metropolitan supremacy in the last weeks of Gatti's reign. Hailed as one of the great Isoldes in history, she came to Johnson for her first full season, fortifying what was already the finest German wing in the world.

Many regarded Johnson's first term as almost miraculous. The box office had soared, the deficit had fallen to the lowest in four years. He had tried to build up the orchestra, encouraged the energetic if occasionally ragged American Ballet. The spring season gave hopes of being an excellent proving ground for U. S. talent. Most important was the reanimated public that seemed to awaken once more to opera. A few grumbled that Johnson's first season had been the most conventional in Metropolitan history. No premieres had been produced. Not one opera was put on unless it looked sure-fire from the box-office standpoint. But Johnson, playing safe, called attention to the harmony and co-operation he had spread through his whole organization, anticipated more novelty this winter.

Contracts, Plans. When Edward Johnson sailed home from Europe this summer, he carried in his trunk as many contracts, in his head as many new plans, as anyone could desire. He had hired such singers as Poland's Gertrud Riinger, whose dramatic soprano made her a favorite in Berlin; Soprano Franca Somigli, who grew up in Manhattan as plain Marian Clarke, won fame four years ago in Europe and delighted Mussolini; Soprano Gina Cigna, who earned a gold medal studying piano at the Paris Conservatory, has been a star at Milan's La Scala ever since Toscanini recommended her there six years ago. Much was expected of Kerstin Thorborg, tall young Swede whose contralto won her first place at the Stockholm Royal Opera.

Aside from Lucrezia Bori who resigned last spring (TIME, April 6), 16 singers were not scheduled to return this year. Johnson declared he would stick to last year's plan of fostering young talents by planting them in the spring season, but that they must not be billed for the regular season. Firmly he let it be known that this year would be one of weeding out incompetents.

Sensitive about the long-languishing French & Italian operas, Johnson scoured Europe for a man who could resuscitate them. In Paris he was struck by a fresh, vividly staged Fidelia; in Vienna he applauded a crisp mounting of Tannhauser. Finally in Salzburg he overtook and engaged the man responsible for both: young, sleek-haired Dr. Herbert Graf who was working with Toscanini. In his 33 years Graf has won a doctorate from Vienna University for his thesis Richard Wagner as Stage Director, staged more than 50 operas including Modernist George Antheil's Transatlantic. Known for his direct, challenging technique which he learned from the cinema and the Russians Stanislavsky, Tairoff and Meyerhold, he won fame by staging the most energetic Falstaff Philadelphia ever saw, increased his reputation when he mounted Mozart's Escape from the Seraglio and Gluck's Alceste in Florence's Boboli Garden last year. Hardly had he stepped off the boat in Manhattan last month when he was rushed to Cleveland to stage Elektra under Conductor Artur Rodzinski.

In his still new role of Metropolitan manager, Edward Johnson chose Die Walkuere to open his season next week, the first time in 35 years a Wagnerian opera has been first-nighted at the Metropolitan. Artur Bodanzky will be the first-night conductor, but a new conductor has been engaged, Portuguese-born Maurice de Abravanel, and an old one re-engaged, Richard Hageman, who will be on hand to direct the U. S. premiere of his Capon-sacchi. Another U. S. premiere was to be Cimarosa's more-than-a-century-old Secret Marriage. Both operas are to be sung in English. Manager Johnson also plans revivals of such operas as Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann, Wagner's Flying Dutchman, Saint-Saens's Samson et Dalila, Smetana's Bartered Bride (held over from last spring), Rimsky-Korsakov's Le Coq d'Or (for which Lily Pons spent this summer learning how to dance & kick), Mozart's Don Giovanni, Bellini's Norma.

Guild. Operagoers were amazed last year at the teamwork and smoothness of Manager Johnson's first season. Gossips were equally amazed at the support young matrons and businessmen were giving him. Hundreds, by asking attendants the way to the bar and washrooms, revealed that this was their first visit to the Opera House. For this new contingent, lively, white-haired Mrs. August Belmont was chiefly responsible. As Actress Eleanor Robson at the old Empire Theatre she used to hurry across the street from her performances and buy standing room at the Opera House. All her life she has kept her interest in the Metropolitan, three years ago became the first woman on its board. When Johnson stepped into the managership she rallied behind him with a little knot of socialite backers, founded the Metropolitan Opera Guild, and was made its chairman. Key to her salesmanship was the ticket coupon book, available in any amount to Guild members only, the coupons redeemable at the Metropolitan box-office or at Guild headquarters against their value in tickets. Not restricted to a particular day of the week nor to a particular section of the Opera House, the coupons, coupled with the Guild's telephone reservation service, became the first painless system of obtaining opera tickets for those who could not afford to be season subscribers. In return for the $10 membership premium Mrs. Belmont offered, besides Guild service, a seat to a dress rehearsal, admission to an "at home" party. By the end of the year she was able to turn over $50,000 to the Opera box office. Last week she boasted that her Guild now numbers 2,400.

Energetic Mrs. Belmont had extended her plans this year with chairmen in 65 communities of three states, with the weekly Opera news Bulletin to members, with Metropolitan Operagrams, a 48-page book listing the plots, biographical notes, bibliography and available phonograph records on the operas and composers of the 1936-37 repertory. Hoping for a large Christmas-present sale of coupon books, she expects the Guild to sponsor a performance of Aida for children next March.

Eduardo di Giovanni. Guelph, Ontario, was first to discover Edward Johnson's musical leanings when, at 5, he piped Throw Out the Life Line in a Sunday-school concert. When he was studying law at the University of Western Ontario, he skipped out before the spring examinations, got a job soloing in Manhattan's Brick Presbyterian Church, later earned $700 a week singing Lieut. Niki in Oscar Straus's A Waltz Dream. Money saved therefrom took him to Italy where he studied under Caruso's old teacher Vincenzo Lombardi. Cynical old Lombardi said he would make better progress with an Italian name. Translated into Eduardo di Giovanni, he cut a wide singing swath through Europe, kept the name until he returned to the U. S. in 1919 to sing with the Chicago Opera.

Three years later he signed up with the Metropolitan, sang there for 13 years. During that time he endeared himself to audiences by the taste and intelligence of his singing, to the Opera personnel by his backstage amiability. The latter came in handy when he was made manager.

Simple, genial, a Rotarian, Manager Johnson is in deadly earnest, wants to convince everybody that opera is "good music and a good show." By concert tours, renting stars, broadcasting, he plans to make the Metropolitan cover more ground than ever before. His dream is to have the Metropolitan running ten months a year before the New York World's Fair (1939).

* The same night Manhattanites were congratulating themselves on last year's prosperous season and anticipating an even better one, stagehands in Chicago were ringing down the curtain on a comeback even more surprising. With the help of Foodmaker Jason Whitney (cheese) and the Brothers Goldblatt (department stores), Impresario Paul Longone had redeemed his failure of last year (TIME, Dec. 16, 1935), discovered Prodigy Betty Jaynes, steered Soprano Vivian della Chiesa into stardom, sold out the house for Galli-Curci's return, produced creditable opera at $4 top, ended the season with a deficit of only about $50,000.

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