San Francisco's Cry

Throughout Depression the proudest of U. S. opera companies was the San Francisco organization which, though its seasons were brief, imported expensive singers, moved into a handsome new municipal auditorium and never gasped for money. Last autumn the San Francisco Opera peaked its artistic career by presenting Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungen at a cost of some $80,000 (TIME, Nov. 4). Last week President Wallace M. Alexander of the Opera Association announced a deficit of $45,000, recommended a begging campaign for $50,000 to insure another season.

Seemingly unconcerned was Gaetano Merola, the dapper irrepressible Italian who against all odds founded the San Francisco company in 1922. Impresario Merola defined the deficit as an asset, symbol of the scenic equipment which he has been steadily acquiring. While San Franciscans worried over President Alexander's pronouncement, Merola was flitting about Manhattan last week, hearing new singers, considering new contracts.

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