Speech from the Throne

Because the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported "on unimpeachable authority" that Depression might force Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera Company to suspend production next year, Lawyer Paul Drennan Cravath, the Metropolitan's new board chairman, felt called upon last week to make his first significant speech from the throne. Rumors have had the Metropolitan so hard hit financially that it could not even finish the present season, its directors so dissatisfied with the conservative, practical policies of Impresario Giulio Gatti-Casazza that they were just waiting for the expiration of his contract (April 1935) to appoint some such character as Samuel Lionel ("Roxy") Rothafel to take his job. That meant surely a company reorganized and moved to Radio City.

Chairman Cravath quashed all such hearsay tersely. His deep voice has always overwhelmingly convinced his big businessmen clients. A statement from his great & good friend Otto Hermann Kahn who owns from 70 to 80% of the Metropolitan stock was not forthcoming. But financial security seemed to lie in the announcement that a two-year contract had been signed with National Broadcasting Co. Twenty-five operas sent over the air will bring in a revenue of $250,000. The first: Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel, Christmas afternoon.

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