Tale of Three Cities

In the three leading operatic cities of the U.S. an object lesson in opera financing was offered last week:

In Manhattan the Metropolitan Opera Co., while enjoying a boom season, passed the hat for $300,000 "to keep the institution going." Reasons: the Met's profitable out-of-town tours had been curtailed by the war; there was a $145,000 tax bill on the Opera House. The Met's taxes, though rescinded by a recent act of the New York Legislature (TIME, May 10) may not actually be erased until October 1944.

In Chicago the managers of the late Sam Insull's Chicago Opera House tried to sell 50,000 books of tickets at $10 apiece to "insure Chicago the finest opera in the world." The plan was to produce eight weeks of home-grown opera, which (according to the Chicago Daily News) would "demonstrate the culture of Chicago, and . . . counteract certain dark spots in the reputation of the city." But by week's end only 216 books had been bought, and it looked as if the only opera Chicago would have would be a two-week season of guesting by Manhattan's Met. Such a guest season would be enough opera to entitle the Opera House to an approximate $100,000 tax exemption granted to it as a cultural institution.

In San Francisco opera finance was sound. The City of San Francisco has long owned its own opera house--one of the most modern and tasteful in the world. The San Francisco Opera Co., which uses the opera house rent free, seldom has more than a few dollars' deficit to report.

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