Anniversary

From the tiny glass box--"about twice the size of a telephone booth"--on the Grand Tier of Manhattan's musty old Metropolitan Opera House came a rich, familiar voice last week: "Good afternoon, opera lovers from coast to coast." To some 10 million of the radio audience, Milton Cross, 60, was making his soist opera broadcast and winding up his 25th season as announcer of ABC's Metropolitan Opera, radio's oldest and biggest spectacular.

Both Cross and ABC had another reason to celebrate: the Texas Co., which has spent $7,500,000 on radio opera in the past 17 years, had just promised to keep picking up the tabs. This was especially reassuring in view of the continuing decline of network radio programing and the high mortality rate of long-run good-music shows, e.g., The Voice of Firestone. To its everlasting credit--and to the extra delight of opera listeners--Sponsor Texaco has been as tasteful as it has been generous. In the three to five hours of air time it buys every Saturday, 20 weeks a year, there is not a single commercial. In spots totaling less than one minute. Texaco is politely identified as sponsor. The company is rewarded with some 10.000 letters a year ("My dear Texas Company . . .") from people who say they buy Texaco products because of its "public service" attitude of sponsorship.

Afternoon of a Fan. To opera buffs, Saturday afternoon is a dedicated time. Many communities have formed opera luncheons and listening clubs in homes, music stores, auditoriums and churches across the U.S. More solitary listeners pull shades, take the phone off the hook and even lock their doors. Wrote one fan, too old to attend the Met any more: "On Saturdays, I get my black velvet dress out of its box. And I dress my hair and put a fresh flower in a vase beside me. After all, I am to spend the afternoon with dukes and duchesses." In the '305, when the Met was being refurbished, a Texan had one of the plush seats sent to him so that he could "listen in style." One devotee left the Met $2,000 in her will "as a token of my sincere appreciation" for the broadcasts. (One year a third of the Met's million-dollar contributions came from radio listeners.) And a cowboy wrote that he liked to strap a radio to his saddle and gallop across the mesa to The Ride of the Valkyries.

Broadcasting from the Met is one of radio's thorniest technical problems. "You don't have the static setup of a studio." says Technical Director William Marshall. "There is constant movement; hence, 16 microphones must be used to follow it." Mikes are constantly being tuned in and out, so that dial twisters at home actually hear fewer flaws than do boxholders of the Diamond Horseshoe.

A 35-Minute Labyrinth. Since Texaco became sponsor in 1940, the program has introduced regular intermission features such as Opera News on the Air, Opera Quiz, and Clifton Fadiman's interviews as a roving reporter. Before that, Announcer Cross sometimes had to ad-lib for as long as 35 minutes. "Frantically reaching for ideas," he recalls, "I once described the labyrinth of paths beneath the opera house, then the cellar under the stage where the technicians were located." Another time he "dwelt thoughtfully on the numbers on the railroad cars" in which each singer would travel on tour.

Cross, who also has four other network shows, once told an audience that a program would be "under the baton of Artosco Turanini," and recently, when he tried to advise listeners to "stay tuned for the news," he told them to "stay stewed for the nudes." But his Met broadcasts are almost perfectly planned and executed, and last week, as they have for a quarter of a century, the idolatrous end-of-season fan letters began pouring in again. A sample: "I have just turned off my radio with tears--I could hardly listen to Milton Cross as he said goodbye."

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