The Phantom of the Opera

For the first time in 59 years, Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera took the public completely into its confidence last week to confess the real state of its financial health. It was bad.

Last season the leading U.S. opera company wound up with a $214,000 deficit. Opera-wise people knew that the Met had suffered a disappointing season. Many had guessed an operating loss of $50,000 to $102,000. But the published figure was big enough to pose once again the question of opera's survival in a streamlined age.

Opera is fantastically expensive to mount. Like a department store, it combines many things under one roof: symphony orchestra, vocal stars, theater, ballet, chorus. The expense ($6,500 to $13,000 a performance) necessitates high-priced tickets (a $7.70 top last year). Even so the Met must average an 88% full house to break even.

In the lush days of Caruso, World War I and the booming 20s, paunchy Impresario Giulio Gatti-Casazza built up a $1,100,000 surplus, but depression tore it down again. By 1933 the Metropolitan had to pass the hat for $300,000. Since then, the Metropolitan has been regularly running in the red.

Most obvious reason for last year's deficit was the 11% slump in attendance over the year before, partly due to the Met's shortage in its chief stock in trade, fine voices. Unexpected blows last season were the loss of its greatest artist and box-office draw, Kirsten Flagstad (holed up or held up in Norway); its next-best Wanerian soprano, Marjorie Lawrence (victim of paralysis); Tenors Jussi Bjoerling (stranded in Sweden) and Tito Schipa (recalled to Italy). Like a consistently losing team, the Met did not attract packed grandstands.

Another reason for the gap between income and outgo is the increased cost of union labor in recent years. In 1905 (when a limited financial statement was issued), Manager Heinrich Conried paid $544,000 to his principal singers (compared with the $532,900 paid by the Met last season), but only $95,000 for his orchestra ($341,000 last season), $66,000 for his chorus and ballet ($254,800 last season).

Taxes are another drain. Unlike every important European opera house, the Met has no claim on the Government pocketbook. Instead it pays $145,000 in real-estate taxes. If these taxes were lifted, a 5% increase in box-office revenue would be enough to put Manhattan's creaky opera company into the black. As it is, the Metropolitan's bookkeepers may well take what comfort they can from the practical philosophy of the Met's first board chairman, James A. Roosevelt (uncle of Roosevelt I). Said he: "We never expected that it would pay. No opera house in the world ever paid as an investment, and none ever will."

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