Barnstorming Opera

The band played, floats lined the streets, a mob jammed the station and cheered. South Bend, Ind. was out in force to greet the NBC Opera Company as if it were a conquering football team. When the curtain opened on Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in the new $2,500,000 arts center of St. Mary's College, the house was packed; when it closed, the audience was happily enthusiastic. It was a rousing send-off for a costly experiment by NBC --to send its opera company barnstorming across the country to bring first-rate opera to towns-that may never have seen it before.

Seven years ago, NBC had no opera company and wanted none. Sponsors considered TV opera poison to listener ratings. Then in 1949 a Czech-born conductor named Peter Herman Adler got together with NBC's General Music Director Samual Chotzinoff. The reason the ordinary listener did not appreciate opera, they argued, was that he could not understand the words and the stilted acting made the whole thing seem ridiculous. "If we don't understand the singer's words," says Adler, "we cannot know whether he acts or even sings in accordance with them. And the moment we lose interest in this acting, we lose interest in the character he portrays and eventually in the opera itself."

Vocal Sacrifice. Adler and Chotzinoff rounded up a group of young singers, among them one Mario Lanza, schooled them in acting, had them rehearse English versions of La Boheme and Figaro. As Adler tells it, one night he "trapped" RCA Boss General Sarnoff at a dinner party, and hustled out his little group to sing. When the music ended. Sarnoff looked accusingly at Adler, then sighed: "O.K., put them on the air." Adler & Co. went on the air in 1949, have been on ever since.

Stars were accustomed to sauntering in to sing their parts through, then departing while the rest of the cast rehearsed. With Adler and Chotzinoff they found they were expected to rehearse from 10 in the morning until 6 at night with the whole company, and for days on end. Adler insisted on good acting, unhesitatingly sacrificed some voice quality for it. "We will not take someone who weighs 400 Ibs. simply because she can sing well. We will instead take a voice that is not quite so good, provided the singer looks the part and can act, act, act."

Bumpy Exit. NBC's Opera Theater has been widely admired on television, but sponsors are still wary. This year NBC decided that if more people could hear their brand of intelligible and dramatic opera in person, they would tune in television opera in droves.

In South Bend last week, the NBC company ran into some of the troubles that all barnstormers are subject to; e.g., the sidelights were so blinding that one soprano twice bumped them heavily as she exited. But even so, the company had its listeners chortling at the gags as well as applauding the arias. Adler's opera is not great opera musically; it is not designed to be. But it may well prove his argument that opera can be popular and as easy to take as musical comedy. In the next weeks, the company, 100 strong including a 41-man orchestra, will do 54 performances of Figaro and Puccini's Madame Butterfly, sometimes in communities as small as Lake Charles, La. and Pittsburg, Kans. If there is a customer for every seat at every performance, the tour will still lose at least $150,000. But if the company makes that many new aficionados for opera, NBC will consider the money well spent.

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