Opera in Cleveland

Night after the Germans pounced on Scandinavia last week, Norwegian Soprano Kirsten Flagstad. Swedish Contralto Kerstin Thorborg, Danish Tenor Lauritz Melchior and German Baritone Herbert Janssen sang together in Wagner's Tannhaeuser in Cleveland. Their audience felt a tenseness on the stage. They did not know that Soprano Flagstad had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get in touch by telephone and cable with her husband, daughter, mother and sister in Oslo. The curtain went down on the final swellings of the Pilgrims' Chorus. Flagstad & Co. bowed at something bigger than most opera singers ever see: an auditorium two city blocks long, full of nearly 10,000 wildly applauding people.

For twelve springs Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera has visited Cleveland, and become so popular that it now plays in Public Hall, capacity 9,400. Two years ago eight operas drew 68,000 people, an indoor world record. During the week, music-lovers arrive by special plane from Detroit, by special train from Pittsburgh, Erie, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Columbus, Detroit. Only 40% of the seat-buyers are Clevelanders. There has never been a deficit. Top price is the same as in Manhattan, $7, but there are 1,049 seats at $1. Among other cities on which the Metropolitan calls this year--Boston, Baltimore, Rochester, Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta--only Boston gets more opera than Cleveland. Net take from the Cleveland visit should be $100,000.* The Metropolitan would be mighty glad to do as well at home, where it breaks about even.

* Total contributions at week's end to the Metropolitan's current $1,000,000 fund to buy its old opera house: $833,343. Deadline: May 31.

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