COMPETITORS AND CRITICS
By 1952, having stood up to three centers of power—stars, board members, and reviewers—Bing was ready to take on other comers. It was the turn of competitors, starting with the New York City Opera, rumored to be considering Boris Godunov (it did not happen) and Der Rosenkavalier, both on the Met bill for the season. Since its founding in 1943, City Opera had made its home at the former Shriner-built Mecca Temple a mile or so north of the Met at 55th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Bing evidently thought this incomparably more modest company dangerous enough to charge it with unfriendly, if not unfair, competition. The next year, City Opera requested that Richard Tucker be released to sing during its fall tour. Bing made this typical response: “It is just wrong in principle that the City Center should go out of New York and suddenly appear with the Metropolitan’s leading artist. It does not seem to me dignified for the City Center and it certainly is not good for the Metropolitan.” In 1954, Bing had a bone to pick with the equally “unfriendly” and moreover “uncommunicative” Chicago Lyric Opera. Chicago had invited top Met singers without consulting New York. Yet another grievance was voiced to officials as highly placed as the ambassador to Italy, Claire Booth Luce: La Scala’s government subsidies, he wrote on April 2, 1953, and its tax-free cachets stacked the deck against the Met. Earlier that spring, he had written to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “Not very long ago I had a meeting with Dott. Ghiringhelli [general manager of La Scala] at which I proposed that the leading opera houses of the world should collaborate and that the managements should . . . form a united front against artists who play one management against another.” The tables had turned since 1908 when Gatti and Kahn had foiled an Italian–South American plot to keep artists away from New York and London. In 1921, strapped European intendants had pleaded that the Met refrain from luring already contracted singers with its much higher fees. These maneuvers, like Bing’s, had come to naught.19
Bing found more cause to grumble. On January 21, 1953, he wrote indignantly to Wadmond that broadcast intermission features presented savants hostile to the Met, namely, the quizmaster Robert Lawrence, Deems Taylor, Boris Goldovsky, and George Marek. Marek was an executive at RCA Victor, rival of the Met’s partner, Columbia Records, and therefore necessarily biased. Bing enclosed with his letter a clipping of a “stupid and uninformed” interview with Goldovsky (Herald Tribune, Jan. 18). In point of fact, the broadcast features were nothing if not benign. Bing was exercised not by on-air antagonism but by negative comments panelists had made elsewhere, the sort of reaction that led observers then and later to evoke “the familiar Bing paranoia.” Enmities, eccentricities, and troubled waters notwithstanding, by the spring of 1953, Bing’s reputation as a brilliant administrator had brought him the tempting offer to oversee opera in Berlin.20
Later that year, his beef was with Opera News. In correspondence with Eleanor Belmont (May 15), Bing rehearsed an argument he had brought against the intermission features: that the audience would not know that Opera News was independent of the Metropolitan and did not speak for its management. He assured her that no one more than he held dear the freedom of the press. However, a recent article in praise of Fritz Reiner, about to leave for the Chicago Symphony, had fomented discord in the orchestra. Tibor Kozma, Reiner’s assistant and author of the piece, had written that the Metropolitan staff included both “professional” conductors, in the tradition of his mentor and, alas, “amateurs” too. Bing also objected to unflattering reviews in Opera News of books by Olin Downes and Irving Kolodin. Such critiques, he insisted, damaged the relationship between the management and the two journalists, friction the company could ill afford. The review of Kolodin’s The Story of the Metropolitan Opera, 1883–1950 was especially irksome. It railed in part, “No smallest item that might suggest intrigue, pettiness or personal self-seeking is omitted from the text. It is only necessary for an opera patron to show signs of wealth for Mr. Kolodin to assume that his generosity is either niggardly or bifarious. . . . Even in the accounts of the performances the author seems to relish failures more than successes.” True, Kolodin’s history is often cranky, and his contempt for wealth and social prominence undisguised. In his accounts of performances, he is prone to dwell on weaknesses. That he would offend some of the Met’s oldest and best-heeled benefactors and their progeny was inevitable, and a matter of indifference neither to Bing nor to Belmont—but for different reasons. In her reply to Bing’s complaint (May 18, 1953), Belmont asked (and answered) a question to which we will return in the last chapter: “When is Opera News a Metropolitan ‘house organ’ and when is it not a ‘house organ’?” She was clear that in intramural matters the magazine should function as a house organ. And, in fact, Opera News had, for the most part, avoided “criticism” or “opposition,” risking “dullness” and “whitewash.” The Kozma article was “an error,” she granted. But when it came to “extramural matters,” such as book reviews, “more latitude [was] justified.” In any case, both Downes and Kolodin understood fully the separation between the Guild, the sponsor of Opera News, and the company. They would certainly not, as Bing had asserted, place the blame on him. As to the Kolodin volume, she thought it full of “mistakes in fact, in judgment and in taste.” The implication was that, given half a chance, she would have written the scathing review herself.21
STANDEES AND CLAQUES
Of all the rifts of Bing’s early years, none ran deeper than that which pitted the general manager against the standees. Bing made a point of confusing standees and claqueurs. He was, of course, fully aware that although most claqueurs were standees (they were issued free tickets in exchange for cheering on cue), most standees were not claqueurs (they were fans who had paid their way). Their drill consisted of waiting on line for hours, often in the cold of New York winters, before rushing in as the doors opened to grab their favorite spots on the perimeter of the orchestra floor or at the back and sides of the family circle. The standees knew the music, the singers, and when and what to applaud—or not.
FIGURE 26. The standee line at Maria Callas’s Metropolitan debut, October 29, 1956 (authors’ collection)
The claque was a different matter. Originating in Paris in the early nineteenth century as a concession of managements to their stars, then making its way to other parts of Europe and to the United States, its existence as an unofficial operation had been an open secret at the Met since the 1890s. At the beginning of 1906–07, a season of mishap and scandal, a flurry of references to the claque made its way into the papers. Especially piquant was the item concerning the two hundred tickets Caruso distributed to excellent effect in the wake of his Central Park monkey-house conviction. Three days later, absent a claque, his entrance onto the Met stage was received with little fanfare; from then on, he bought fifty tickets for each of his performances. Four years later, an official claque was engaged by the Met management itself. The story goes that one day Gatti and tenor Alessandro Bonci were bemoaning the New York audience’s ignorance of the protocols of applause. Bonci mentioned that he had just the knowledgeable man, his own valet, to initiate clapping at appropriate junctures. And so it was that Max Bennett was hired to organize the claque, and remained steadfastly at his post for decades. He was succeeded by his son, John, who labored noisily until 1935, when the newly appointed Edward Johnson refused to continue to foot the bill for the chief claqueur. Johnson went further, forbidding artists from passing out tickets to fans grateful to repay the debt with well-placed bravos. The Times speculated (Dec. 13, 1935) that prior to the interdiction, Bennett had pocketed as much as $100 a week. His fees, higher for Saturday matinees, were based on the number of curtain calls: $25 guaranteed two bows, and for every additional bow another $5 was tacked on to the bill. There was not a set cost for “hissing a rival singer,” as was specified on a mid-nineteenth-century Parisian price list: 250 francs, 25 more than for “overwhelming applause.” And yet, some believed that “hissing a rival singer” or its
equivalent was also for sale at the twentieth-century Met. By the end of 1935, the claque was back. But now, the chief claqueur was paid by the artists. Toward the end of Johnson’s tenure, Virgil Thomson weighed in on the matter. In decline during World War II, he said, the claque was reborn with the postwar importation of Italian tenors: Ferruccio Tagliavini’s debut “last fall was a brilliant occasion because claques were operating in his favor.” Giuseppe Di Stefano’s debut, less successful by far, “was defended by a single claque and a very crude one” at that (Herald Tribune, March 28, 1948).
On Bing’s 1950 opening night, “the activities of a claque were hardly to be noticed” (Times). Bing had graciously bought coffee for the first one hundred on the line. But by his fourth year, the standees had become his bête noire, more than an occasional bother. He could not ban the standing room fans, but he did, more aggressively than Johnson, go after the claque, and thus rid the Met of a good part of the “intolerable nuisance” that the singers called “the indispensables.” Bing drafted a memorandum to solo artists requesting that they refrain from engaging a claque, and implying, with a wink at Zinka Milanov, that the agreement he had reached with them the previous year had been broken (Feb. 1954). And later that season, when the Milanov fans booed Kurt Baum, frustrated that the detested tenor was her frequent partner, often in Aïda and almost always in Il Trovatore, standing room was cut by half, from two hundred to one hundred.22
Bing was again on the warpath on opening night 1954–55. His glance had apparently fallen on one or two standees in the family circle who had hung their coats over the railing. “I think the wearing of a jacket in America’s leading opera house can be considered reasonable. Is there any legal aspect to this? Can we force people to wear jackets or request them to leave?” For the second year in a row, the Met hired a detective agency to investigate the “standing room problem.” A private eye infiltrated the line on several occasions, including a Tuesday night La Gioconda with Milanov and Baum. He reported finding that five or so Milanov fans at the head of the line had let in forty or fifty others just as the doors opened. The sleuth had learned that Milanov cultivated her fans by inviting them backstage after performances and throwing her “children” a party at the end of the year. All this came as no particular surprise; she had long been suspected of encouraging the bad behavior of her fan club. In spring 1955, she and Bing exchanged letters on the Baum affair, Milanov insisting that her conscience was clear (April 8) and Bing responding, with another wink, that he had no doubt she was as distressed as he by the demonstrations against her (unnamed) colleague. Ten years later, there was another eruption, and for the first and last time standing room was shut down, if only for a single matinee. Leonie Rysanek and Lucine Amara had received “inciting presents,” anonymous bouquets of garlic (Times, Feb. 15, 1964). Although Bing claimed he had proof of the complicity of the standees, he would not call for an inquiry, fearing, he said, that he would embarrass his artists further: “Expressions of disapproval are on a level of vulgarity that cannot be tolerated. The way to express disapproval is to do without applause.” He finally prevailed with the opening of the new house. The auditorium was designed so that standees were relegated to the back of the parterre and to the stratospheric heights of the family circle, both distant from the stage. A new policy of advance sales for standing room would guarantee that there would no longer be a rowdy line outside the theater before each performance. And without a line, troops partisan to one singer or another could not be marshaled.23
LABOR
The ties that bound the Metropolitan and organized labor were knotted in 1904. Unrest of greater and lesser severity first perturbed the Conried administration and continued through the decades. The year before Bing took up residence, Johnson announced the cancellation of the 1948 season, later restored, citing the prohibitive cost of introducing unemployment and retirement benefits as demanded by musicians and stagehands. Bing got off to a promising start by helping to broker a new contract. He factored into his initial budget unemployment insurance for those laid off the many months each year the house was dark; he also backed the establishment of a retirement fund. But the imperious Bing and the ten or so Met locals, not to mention the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), would soon be at sword’s point. In 1953, there was a stagehand wildcat strike, an event that disrupted no performances but raised the frightening specter of the general manager, stationed at the ropes in place of a striker during the dress rehearsal of Norma, dropping a heavy curtain on Milanov’s head. Threats of season cancellations were issued in 1956, and then in 1961, and again in 1966 as the company was preparing for its Lincoln Center inauguration.
The ultimate bone of contention in 1956 was the status of Robert Herman. Herman was an assistant stage director and, as such, a member of AGMA. He was, at the same time, assistant to Max Rudolf and, in that capacity, had sat on management’s side of the negotiating table. In consequence of Herman’s conflicting allegiances, AGMA made noises of bringing charges against him. The fundamental question for the Met was whether AGMA had the right to require that holders of certain jobs be members (Times, July 19, 1956); the management was determined that AGMA not institute a closed shop in the ranks of directors and stage managers. The matter was debated between July 10 and July 17 when the cancellation was announced; on July 23, following a compromise, in effect a postponement of any resolution, the season was reinstated. Two years later, Herman would succeed Max Rudolf as Bing’s artistic advisor and there would no longer be ambiguity about which side of the table was properly his.24
Bing and the board again warned repeatedly of cancellation in 1961, and on August 7 made good on their threat. The orchestra had initially asked for a bold increase of 60 percent over three years, the guarantee of year-long employment, and a reduction in workload to six performances a week. As labor moderated its demands, Bing grew more intransigent, claiming that his principal artists had been released, had in fact made other commitments, and that nothing other than an unsatisfactorily “late and patched-up season” could at this point be assured. In light of the company’s precarious finances, public opinion was initially opposed to the musicians; it now turned against management. Ostensibly moved by a plea from Risë Stevens, President Kennedy intervened. Speculation went that following a spring and summer of Freedom Riders on bus trips through the South and student sit-ins across the country, Kennedy was eager to save Leontyne Price’s opening night Fanciulla del West. He ordered Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg to mediate the dispute, a step AGMA welcomed and Bing dismissed with a characteristic wave of the pen: “I am deeply appreciative of efforts by Mr. Goldberg and President Kennedy, but the basic issue remains” (Times, August 20). The previous day, a Times editorial had spoken for the greater good: “Surely, with the musicians continuing to be conciliatory, the management cannot be allowed to flout public wishes so high-handedly.” It concluded, pointing directly at Bing, “Better a late and patched-up season than no season at all.” Goldberg persisted in his mission, reaching an agreement with Bliss. The musicians acceded to a 14 percent increase over three years, a deal close to that cut with the other unions. But they would not forget what they experienced as Goldberg’s betrayal. In 1964, and with even greater vehemence in 1966, the orchestra would leverage its bitterness at what for Bing and Bliss was the worst possible moment. As they struggled to open the new house, the threat of a strike hung over already daunting circumstances.25
COLOR LINE
Some months before taking over the company, Bing made it clear that in the matter of race, as with all facets of the organization, artistic and administrative, it was a new day. He wrote to a subscriber furious at Flagstad’s reprieve, “I am determined to run [the Metropolitan] without prejudice of race or politics” (Feb. 6, 1950). To another contentious missive he replied, “I am afraid I cannot agree with you that as a matter of principle, Negro singers should be excluded. This is not what America and her allies have been fighting for” (April 20, 1950).
These worthy assertions were accompanied by the more concrete observation that in his first season there would likely be no “Negro singers . . . as there are no suitable parts,” leaving “suitable” indeterminate. The Baltimore Afro picked up on the ambiguity: “Is Rudolf Bing engaged in a little double-talking in his statement to the press and radio that colored would be welcome as artists at the Met if he could find a ‘suitable singer for a suitable part’?”(April 29, 1950). Bing countered that to his knowledge no African-American singer had “ever had operatic experience and I am afraid, in not taking this into account, you are overlooking a most important point.” His interlocutor might have reminded him that five years earlier, in 1945, Todd Duncan had made his debut with the New York City Opera, and so had Camilla Williams in 1946, and Lawrence Winters in 1948. Bing’s covered meaning of 1950 was revealed in a later statement in which he excluded Lohengrin’s Elsa from the roles “suitable” for African-Americans, together with her Germanic sister, the blond Eva of Meistersinger (Times, Dec. 26, 1954). Looking back on his achievements thirteen years later, Bing prided himself on the fact that in his time Martina Arroyo had sung Elsa von Brabant (Times, April 22, 1968).26
Grand Opera: The Story of the Met Page 24
