Cups and Hats

Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera is about the best in the world. For nearly half a century, however, its financial setup has been nearly as musty as some of its scenery. The Metropolitan Opera Association, which produces the operas, does not own the dirty, mustard-colored building on midtown Broadway, but leases it from the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Co. This organization is nothing more nor less than the owners of the Metropolitan's 35 parterre boxes ("Diamond Horseshoe"). Each box holder owns 300 shares of $100-par stock, and liability for a possible annual assessment up to $15 a share.

Manhattan society has let its hair down in recent years, no longer counts an opera box the chief symbol of eminence. Metropolitan box holders have begun to dodge their assessments. Last week the fact-facing news came out that the real-estate company is feeling the pinch, may face liquidation. So said its President Robert S. Brewster in a letter to the Opera Association's Chairman Cornelius Newton Bliss. In reply, the Association (which has a lease for next season) asked for an option on the opera house for $1,500,000 (one-third cash). Should the option contract be approved by the box holders, the Metropolitan would once more publicly pass the tin cup, as it did to keep going in 1933-35. But this time the Metropolitan might well throw in its lot with The People, get the Diamond Horseshoe out of hock for good.

Last week the Detroit Symphony, needing $75,000 to complete a $280,000 budget for the approaching season, faced a problem much like the Metropolitan's. In its 25 years, the Symphony raised $4,000,000 by passing the hat. Half the donations came from twelve old Detroit families, headed by such men as Senator James Couzens, Motorman Roy Dikeman Chapin, Banker Julius Haass, Milkman Jerome Remick--all dead today. A newer generation of motor manufacturers, which never had much time for music, or which was left out of cultural shindigs in the old days, now sits on its hands. The Symphony's current drive for funds brought $150 from Chrysler executives, some $500 from 30 General Motors men, including $250 from President William S. Knudsen. Ford Motors pays $19,500 to the orchestra, which masquerades as the Ford Symphony on the radio.

Mrs. Hugh Dillman (once Mrs. Horace Elgin Dodge), vice president of the Detroit Symphony, has given it some $1,000,000 in 20 years, but this year felt obliged to reduce her contribution from $50,000 to $30,000--top donation in the drive. Moreover, the Symphony has sadly missed its late, lionized Conductor Ossip Gabrilowitsch, whose successors, Coconductors Victor Kolar and Franco Ghione, are competent but barely kittenized.

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