Chimes at the Met

Year Two of the Bing Regime at the Metropolitan Opera got off to a lively start. Most of the critics cheered the new sets and the Margaret Webster staging for opening night's Aida. Traditionalist Olin Downes-of the New York Times found the spectacle side "far from either the nature of the drama or of Verdi's score." But the Timesman seemed to be an exception, and even he liked the singing. Moreover, whatever the critics thought, a glittering audience, 3,840 strong, had a fine time.

The biggest individual triumph belonged to young (30) U.S.-trained, Vienna-seasoned Bass-Baritone George London (TIME, Jan. 9, 1950), making his Met debut as Amonasro. The Herald Tribune's exacting Virgil Thomson reached deep into his accolade box for a proper one, decided that London "took his place among the greatest singing actors we have any of us known or remembered."

A Ducal City. To General Manager Bing himself, the offstage chime of the cash register sounded almost as sweet as the applause. For the first time in Met history, he had sold opening-night tickets separately, rather than as part of a subscription or series package. The sellout audience, paying up to $25 a seat, plunked a handsome $53,112 in the till. Bing did not rest on his first-night work. Two nights later, he hit the critics and another sellout audience with a second new production.

The Metropolitan's Rigoletto had gone even longer (35 years) without new clothes than Aiida. Bing called in Painter-Designer Eugene Berman, and Berman's bright new costumes and sets were a perfect fit: they satisfied convention without slurring modernity. His solid 15th Century Italian ducal city glowed with faded pink marble and magnificent early Renaissance rooms; his costumes, like Aida's, splashed with color.

A Pretty Debutante. Veteran Stage Director Herbert Graf did his part by freshening up Rigoletto's stage business. Verdi's music did the rest. Brilliantly paced by Conductor Alberto Erede, and magnificently sung and acted by a pair of Americans who are fast becoming one of the finest teams in Met history, Leonard Warren (Rigoletto) and Richard Tucker (the Duke), Rigoletto had even Olin

Downes cheering. The whole critical fraternity joined in bravos for another debutante: pretty, golden-haired Viennese Soprano Hilde Gueden, who pinpointed Gilda's top notes as gracefully as she did Gilda's girlish character.

By week's end, Bing had momentarily run out of new productions, but he put on a high-spirited Marriage of Figaro, and introduced a promising American newcomer while he was about it. Cleveland-born Mezzo-Soprano Mildred Miller sang a charming, properly boyish Cherubino, stopped the show with her second-act aria, Voi Che Sapete. It was, everybody agreed, the final bright spot in the Met's sparkling week.

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