Number One to the Met

"My job is to spend money, not to raise it," says the Metropolitan Opera's resident patrician Rudolf Bing. But the general manager of the Met is not opposed to receiving contributions--and last week he got a big one. Eastern Air Lines announced that it was giving the Met $500,000, which will enable Bing & Co. to produce a new Ring cycle of four Wagnerian operas to be presented in as many years.

Eastern's president, Floyd Hall, who has constantly sought to upgrade the company's promotion and advertising (its television commercial, "The Birds," won an award at Cannes in 1966), decided to finance the whole Ring rather than one of its parts. "If you're going to beat the drum," said Hall, "hit it hard enough for people to hear you." Aside from the avalanche of publicity triggered by the announcement, angel Eastern's generosity rates a special credit line in Met programs.

While few U.S. artistic endeavors have had the Met's good fortune, corporate contributions to the arts seem to be increasing. Still, many companies, leary of the baiters who show up at annual meetings to knock any corporate activity beyond the profit statement, refuse to talk about it. General Motors and Chrysler make a habit of keeping their giving under wraps.

Ford, on the other hand, actively and openly supports 17 symphony orchestras, among numerous other projects, through a company fund. In Los Angeles, amounts ranging from $25,000 to $1,000,000 have been given to the Music Center and County Museum of Art by such companies as Rexall, Northrop, and Pacific Telephone & Telegraph. The Houston Symphony is supported by oil companies, but the gifts have not been Texas-size. Theater Atlanta, in Atlanta, Ga., does not credit business with its broad-base support, but can count on getting about $150,000 from businessmen.

Whether or not Eastern's gift to the Met presages a new flood of money for the arts remains uncertain. But rival American and United thought enough of the idea to call in their congratulations. And by week's end, even Bing might have been heard humming: "Fly Eastern--Number One to the Sun."

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