New Man for the Met

The Glyndebourne Opera's Rudolf Bing was relaxing in his Manhattan hotel room before returning to London. He had just finished a business errand for Britain's crack opera company; Glyndebourne's U.S. debut at Princeton, N.J. had been set for autumn 1950, and Bing was well satisfied. Then his phone rang. His faintly accented "Hello" was answered by the mellow tenor tone of the Metropolitan Opera's Edward Johnson. Could Mr. Bing attend a performance as his guest? Rudi Bing said he would be delighted. Last week, operalovers the world over learned that Rudi had seen and heard more than Mozart's Marriage of Figaro at the Met. He had also seen and heard the beginnings of the hiring of Vienna-born Rudolf Bing by the Met as its new general manager.

Bing had been met that March night by Manager Johnson and a little knot of gracious but sharp-eyed Met directors. They apparently liked what they saw: a tall, fastidious man of 47, with charm and a manner of quick, cool decision. At lunch next day, they raised a question: would he consider leaving Glyndebourne and his great Edinburgh Festival (TIME, Sept. 20) to succeed retiring General Manager Johnson in 1950? Rudolf Bing considered it carefully. The Met's directors liked him even better for the way he candidly answered their questions about his policies and prescriptions for curing the artistically and financially ailing Met. Said Bing: "I have not the slightest idea. How can I have before I have learned all about the Met?" Bing and the Met reached an agreement last month, but withheld the announcement for three weeks.

Fair Shake? Last week, in London, Rudolf Bing thought over his new job of running the world's greatest opera house--an institution which went $233,000 into the red in 1947-48, and almost failed to open last season at all, until its unionized workers unwillingly agreed to pass up raises. In his forthright way, Bing had lots of confidence. The job had "just blown up suddenly," he said, but it apparently was not too much of a surprise: "For 15 years, I have known that some day I would reach that goal."

It was more of a surprise to Manhattan critics. Since Canadian-born Edward Johnson announced his retirement in 1950, they had been murmuring such names as Lawrence Tibbett, Lauritz Melchior, even Billy Rose as his successor. The New York Times's highbrow Olin Downes suggested that some people would consider it "time an American were appointed to head America's greatest operatic institution." The nobrow Daily News fired off an editorial: "Fair Shake for American Talent?"

Snakes' Chase. Even so, the critics could find nothing but good in Rudi Bing's reputation. He had learned the opera business from the ground up --in Vienna, in Berlin, and since 1934 in England. He was well aware that "the artistic and commercial ends of opera management chase each other like a snake biting its own tail." He was hopeful about the unions. During the war, when Glyndebourne shut up shop, he had worked his way from clerk to the front office of a London department store. "I got on all right with the shop assistants; perhaps I will get on with the musicians' union too."

He would have time to learn. This fall, he will come over to the Met when the Edinburgh Festival is finished, look over Johnson's shoulder as "manager-designate" for a season before taking over on his own three-year contract. What he will see is a challenge to any man: money troubles, overage scenery, outdated lighting and staging techniques, under-enthusiastic singing and acting. But at least he will get plenty of advice. The Daily News's John Chapman spoke for the other critics: "Man and boy, I've been telling Johnson and [Giulio] Gatti-Casazza before him how to run the opera house, and you don't think I'm going to stop just because Bing is going in, do you?"

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