Spreading the News

Just 20 years ago, the Metropolitan Opera Guild, deciding that it needed a news sheet for its 1,200 members, appointed a brisk little lady named Mrs. John DeWitt Peltz to put it together. The weekly Opera News got under way with no cooperation from the Met, which, even more than it does today, liked to keep its future plans a secret, but the paper chatted about new productions for each week of the Met's then 14-week season, and it survived. Then, through the Saturday afternoon broadcasts, the Guild went on a national basis, soon found itself 16,000 strong; Opera News began to devote itself heavily to the broadcast "Opera of the Week" and became an institution (at $4 a year, 20-c- an issue). Last week, nearing its 20th anniversary (in May), Opera News proudly counted its circulation at 60,000, and itself as one of the most successful of the journals devoted entirely to one subject.

Suffocating Clutter. In 20 years the clutter in Opera News's office on Manhattan's Madison Ave. has grown to the point of suffocation--fading autographed photos of opera stars cover the walls, documents stuff ancient filing cabinets. Editor Peltz's green tin lunchbox sinks into a deeper litter of folders and memos each day, as she tackles the problems of writing about an opera (the broadcast one) 20 weeks a year, year after year. As one example, to keep from repeating itself, Opera News has looked at its most performed opera. Carmen, from just about every possible angle. In 14 issues it has explored such facets as 1) Carmen's progress from vulgarity to respectability among opera lovers; 2) the history of the first performance; 3) the story of Prosper Merimee, author of the original story; 4) the relation between Carmen and her male counterpart, Don Giovanni; 5) Carmen in Korea. Each time one of the old operatic favorites looms, Mrs. Peltz and her two assistants push back the jungle of operatic ignorance a bit farther. When something old but new, e.g., next season's La Perichole (Offenbach), never before performed by the Met, comes up, the possibility of doing some spadework in virgin soil goes to her head "like wine."

Izett Was a Scot. To help get the research done for her weekly deadlines, Mary Ellis Peltz relies on an ever-changing relay of would-be writers, young students who serve their operatic apprenticeship with her the way others serve in claques or work as spear bearers, then go on to a semester or two in Europe. For publishable articles they get $15 to $25. In order to thin the ranks of contributors. Editor Peltz subjects them to quick research jobs on what she anachronistically calls "$64 questions." Samples: P: Was Gaetano Donizetti (Lucia di Lammermoor) a Scotsman? For years nobody could give an answer, but one girl eventually uncovered some evidence that the composer's great-grandfather was a Scot named Izett--a handy connection, as Lucia is laid in Scotland. P: Why did Puccini change the church in Tosca? In the original play, La Tosca, by Yictorien Sardou, it was Rome's Sant' Andrea al Quirinale, an edifice still set amid open spaces through which the revolutionary Angelotti could have escaped; in the opera, Puccini's church (Sant' Andrea della Valle) is in a thickly built-up part of Rome, where the escape seems less likely. So far, nobody has found an answer to this one.

P: Who was the model for Carmen--a nameless Spanish gypsy, Merimee's own Spanish girl friend, or the heroine of a true tale of Spanish love told to him by the Empress Eugenie's mother? This one is also unanswered.

One Opera News volunteer is completing a mighty job: a card index of every performance of every role sung by every singer in the 63-year history of the Metropolitan Opera. When it is done, the file will be unique, although the demand for its use may be limited. But the magazine itself is devoured by most of its readers. One professional opera man in Italy says he depends on it for news of what's happening in Germany. Youngsters read it to fill in gaps left after their opera recordings. But oldtime fans probably like it best of all; every time an article appears on a star of bygone nights, they get stirred up. "All have long memories," explains Mary Peltz, "and they all write letters."

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