Juilliard's Bargain

In the boxes, in the corridors, in the offices backstage and in every dingy dressing-room last week the old Metropolitan Opera House seemed haunted. Over the boxes hovered the ghosts of the old New Yorkers who in 1883 built the Metropolitan, established it as Society's showplace. Great singers long dead seemed to have gathered in the wings as a reminder that the Metropolitan owed them its world-wide prestige. In the corridors it was easy to imagine the small erect figure of Otto Hermann Kahn, carnation in buttonhole, a quick shrewd word for everyone. No ghost was big Giulio Gatti-Casazza, for 27 years the Metropolitan's general manager. But Gatti's regime ends next month. Last week his successor was named and a momentous bargain sealed. In a desperate attempt to save its life, the Metropolitan sold its independence. Price: $150,000. The buyer was the Juilliard Musical Foundation, created by the late Augustus D. Juilliard, a native of Stark County, Ohio, who migrated to Manhattan and made a fortune in textiles. As Augustus Juilliard grew old he tired of making money and opera became his interest. Nearly every night he was to be seen in Box No. 2, where in 1919 he was seized with his fatal illness. In his will he left $14,000,000 to music, stipulating that it should be used to provide training for young musicians, free concerts for the public and aid for the Metropolitan "at such times and to such extent and in such amount as the trustees [of the Juilliard Foundation] may in their discretion deem proper." The Juilliard School of Music has thrived on a $600,000 per year income. Last week the trustees of the $14,000,000 deemed it "proper" to offer the imperiled Metropolitan $150,000. But there were conditions:

First, the Metropolitan must contribute an additional $100,000, besides campaigning to increase subscriptions for next year by at least 10%. Then, in addition to the 14 weeks of winter opera at the old price-scale ($7 top), there must be a supplementary "popular" season in which young U. S. singers can air their talents and perhaps earn a winter engagement. (Cynical wiseacres suspected that graduates of the Juilliard Music School would find the way to the Metropolitan stage easier than other young aspirants would.)

To further their aims the Juilliards demanded greater representation on the Metropolitan board.*It was not a suggestion but a command when they named as their candidates Lawyer John M. Perry, who drew up Augustus Juilliard's will, Dean Ernest Hutcheson of the Juilliard School of Music, President John ("Helen of Troy") Erskine who has long been ambitious to dictate Metropolitan policies. In exchange for its donation, the Juilliards claimed also the right to pass on the Metropolitan's new managerial force. Herbert Witherspoon, oldtime basso and now a member of the Juilliard teaching staff, was named to succeed General Manager Gatti. Experienced Edward Ziegler will be retained as assistant general manager. Tenor Edward Johnson was appointed as another assistant, to concern himself chiefly with the Juilliard's pet supplementary season.

Thus the Juilliard undertook to "save the Met" and the Press applauded roundly. An embittered minority wondered why the world's richest musical trust had been so leisurely and obvious with its salvage.

The Metropolitan begged it for help three years ago and received a $5,000 loan to be repaid in 1938 with 6% interest. In 1933, when conditions were worse, John Erskine spoke out of turn and the results were almost disastrous. The Met was in the midst of its first tin-cup campaign when Erskine implied that under certain conditions the Juilliard would see things through (TIME, March 13. 1933). The campaign was for $300,000. The Juilliard contributed $50,000. From the Metropolitan stage Soprano Lucrezia Bori said that the impression given by Erskine's statement was not only "unfortunate but erroneous." Cornelius Bliss was "embarrassed." Last year the Juilliard contribution was $40,000.

Throughout the recent maneuvers John Erskine, Jack-of-all-arts, has wisely kept his counsel. But his influence with the Juilliard trustees has never been doubted. Most of the talking last week was done by new Manager Witherspoon. He was accepting the job as "a public trust. . . . We plan to bring opera up-to-date as a real theatrical entertainment. . . . This means more attention to the art of acting and mise-en-scene , so that we will have less calisthenics and more plastic expression." At least Herbert Witherspoon has had experience on both sides of the foot lights. He understands U. S. reactions from his upbringing in Buffalo, his years at Yale (Class of 1805). From 1908 to 1916 he sang at the then proud Metropolitan. He retired to teach, charged stiff fees. For four years he was president of the money-making Chicago Musical College. The year before Samuel Insull's collapse Witherspoon was artistic director of the Chicago Civic Opera but time was too short for him to prove much artistic ability. But he supervised rehearsals with a watch in his hand, managed to cut down on Insull's big budget. At the Metropolitan the test will be stiffer because of the ghosts. The house was built as a social fortress, a fact which the boxholders have never forgotten. The first impresarios were supposed to bear their own losses. In the opening season of 1883 the victim was Henry E. Abbey of Akron, Ohio. His deficit was said to be $600,000 but his customers were happy in their gaslit splendor.

The following year Conductor Leopold Damrosch, father of Walter, introduced German opera and Wagner reigned in Manhattan for seven years thereafter. Under Austrian Maurice Grau, manager from 1898 to 1903. the "golden age of song" set a record for artistry and profit. Grau had such singers as Nordica, Melba, Eames, Calve, Sembrich, the two de Reszkes. Caruso and Farrar made their debuts under Austrian Heinrich Conried, Grau's successor. Like the managers before him Conried had no fixed salary. In those days the arrangement was for impresarios to give themselves "benefits." For his own benefit and in defiance of Bayreuth, Conried gave the first U. S. Parsifal in 1903. Otto Hermann Kahn was a cultivated German-Jew who understood music and loved it. But with all his generosity, Kahn was never fully accepted by the boxholders who inherited their claims at the Metropolitan. Kahn's opera interest dated back to the Conried days when there was much fine singing and little efficiency. Kahn suggested the importation of Giulio Gatti-Casazza and Arturo Toscanini, then the powers at Milan's La Scala.

Toscanini gave the greatest orchestral performances that the Metropolitan had known since the days of Anton Seidl. Gatti was practical. For 21 years he made the opera pay for itself, set by a million-dollar surplus which the first years of Depression quickly annihilated. When Kahn was in command as the Metropolitan's Board Chairman, Gatti's courage was good, for Kahn approved his policies and owned nearly 80% of the company's stock. Kahn resigned three years before his death (TIME, April 9). For his successor he recommended his longtime lawyer, Paul Drennan Cravath.

Under Cravath in 1932 the Metropolitan first asked for help from the Juilliard. The tin-cup drives which followed let the whole world know that Metropolitan Opera had become a losing proposition. Feeling was last week that the Juilliard had driven a hard bargain but that strong, rich blood was badly needed at the Met.

*On the Metropolitan board there were already two Juilliard Foundation trustees: Frederic A. Juilliard, nephew of the late Augustus; and Allen Wardwell, lawyer for the boxholders who own the opera house under the name of the Metropolitan Opera & Real Estate Co. Paul Drennan Cravath, the Metropolitan's board chairman and Cornelius N. Bliss, chairman of the Metropolitan's executive committee, are directors of the Juilliard School of Music.

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