Grand Opera: The Story of the Met

by Affron, Charles

  Only a handful of theater people managed to overcome Bing’s attachment to the middle ground, the limitations of the aged plant, foot-dragging stars, and conservative patrons to achieve their ends. Tyrone Guthrie did away with the “romantic trappings” that in his view had disfigured Carmen (Jan. 31, 1952). Gérard supplied him with a bare-bones act 1 Seville street corner. For act 4, director and designer, short on budget, came up with the arresting ploy of setting the scene in Escamillo’s quarters, where José could convincingly entrap Carmen. The production was a smash. Peter Brook’s rereading moved Faust (Nov. 16, 1953) from the prescribed Gothic sixteenth century to the Romantic nineteenth, a time trip that now seems unremarkable. Gone were Marguerite’s blonde braids and chaste cottage, Faust’s doublet and hose, and Méphistophélès’s red devil tights. The modishly coiffed heroine retired behind an ample weeping willow, the philosopher turned hedonist was decked out as Lord Byron, and the Prince of Darkness sported evening dress, top hat, and cane. Downes took advantage of this Faust to decry the engagement of stage directors who “regard opera as a kind of adulterated theatre, a form to which they must apply the methods of the spoken theatre to redeem it from its ways” (Times). For a new Madama Butterfly (Feb. 19, 1958), the company first looked to Japanese cinema. Negotiations with Akira Kurosawa fizzled. Bing was leery of the next candidate, director Yoshio Aoyama, and of the “totally conventional realistic” designs submitted by Motohiro Nagasaka. He need not have been concerned. The “restraint and delicacy” that purged inauthentic representations of Japan yielded a refitting that, for Time, “set off the throbbing Puccini score far more effectively than did the old conventional melodramatic breast-beating.”52

  The Così fan tutte (Dec. 28, 1951) assigned to Alfred Lunt, Broadway’s leading practitioner of the comedy of manners, was a resetting of such refinement that it launched a reappraisal of the work itself. Gérard’s sets, as elegant as the movements Lunt taught the principals, brought the action forward onto the apron of an interior proscenium. He limned eighteenth-century Naples from window frames, lattices, chandeliers, and a pastel color scheme accented by the luxuriant taffeta costumes of the fickle sisters. Two other revivals mediated the acceptance of what soon became canonical titles, Eugene Onegin (Oct. 28, 1957) and Turandot (Feb. 24, 1961). In 1957, in English, Tchaikovsky filled the prestigious opening-night position. Reviewers were unruffled by the transposition of Onegin and Tatiana’s final encounter from the more transgressive interior of the husband’s house specified by the libretto to a more picturesque park in the falling snow. They admired Peter Brook’s staging and Rolf Gérard’s sets, but as for the opera itself, they agreed, as had their confrères in 1920, that Eugene Onegin was static, faded, and dated. Thanks to quite frequent revivals, today’s critics and audiences are devoted to what Tchaikovsky called not an opera, but “lyrical scenes.” And in 1977, Tatiana was at last freed to write her love letter in the original Russian. When Aoyama fell ill, Turandot devolved to Nathaniel Merrill. The delicate chinoiserie of Beaton’s long-ago Peking, with décor less grandiose than Puccini’s grand canvas had known in New York and elsewhere, helped secure a place for an opera not heard at the Met in three decades.

  From Europe came Carl Ebert’s Macbeth and Ariadne auf Naxos, sickly transplants from Glyndebourne. His kitschy Martha (Jan. 26, 1961) suffered the indignities of an English adaptation disavowed by the translator (in one performance jettisoned by Tucker, who simply sang his big aria in Italian) and of a fractious horse that just missed dumping a wagonload of principals into the pit. Martha raised the question of Bing’s repertory choices: “One wonders why a great opera house should waste a magnificent cast on such a flimsy period piece when great masterpieces are neglected.” Gunther Rennert had piled up a cutting-edge resumé in Germany. After the absurd Nabucco, the unobjectionable Un Ballo in maschera, and a tepid Manon (Oct.17, 1963), Bing could take heart in Rennert’s collaboration with Rudolf Heinrich for a suitably decadent Salome. Margherita Wallmann’s impact on Lucia di Lammermoor (Oct. 12, 1964) paled before Sutherland’s patented version of Donizetti’s demented bride. The last of the European directors to make his debut, Jean-Louis Barrault, staged Faust in the clever, Brueghel-inspired designs of Jacques Dupont.53

  That left the house directors, presumably less dashing and certainly less costly than the guests. It was to these journeymen that Bing turned increasingly as the 1950s drew to an end. The best-known was Herbert Graf, a Met veteran, “an opera man first and last.” His blocking and Berman’s ingenious decorated two-tiered set combined to smooth the way for the many scene changes of Don Giovanni (Oct. 31, 1957). Graf could do little with Tannhaüser’s flimsy Wartburg valley and Landgrave Hermann’s antiseptic castle (Dec. 26, 1953), Die Zauberflöte’s welter of ugly sets (Feb. 23, 1956, in English), or Tristan und Isolde’s shriveled proportions (Dec. 18, 1959). Dino Yannopoulos, who had been on the staff since 1946, was handed a lavish Andrea Chénier (Dec. 16, 1954), an unsightly Ernani, and, for Don Pasquale (Dec. 23, 1955), the Met’s “first pseudo-revolving stage.” The local team of Nathaniel Merrill and Robert O’Hearn delivered the shows Bing was after—modern but not radical, flattering to the stars. Their most spectacular invention for L’Elisir d’amore (Nov. 15, 1960) was the balloon landing of the charlatan doctor. Die Meistersinger (Oct. 18, 1962) placed Hans Sachs’s house at the confluence of steeply raked alleys in a three-dimensional bourgeois Nuremberg. Here was a rare “sample of operatic production that would improve the look of any stage in the world,” high praise, indeed, from Irving Kolodin. Merrill and O’Hearn did their best to animate the notoriously static Samson et Dalila (Oct. 17, 1964); they devised a progression of shifting spaces for the long choral passages of act 1 and pulled off a spectacular collapse of the Temple of Dagon in act 3.54

  Alceste (Dec. 6, 1960, in English), La Sonnambula (Feb. 21, 1963), and Adriana Lecouvreur (Jan. 21, 1963) were revived for Eileen Farrell, Joan Sutherland, and Renata Tebaldi, and entrusted to staff directors. Farrell’s thrilling debut had been long awaited. As for Alceste, Schonberg minced no words: this conductor’s opera was “a stately bore, and most of us, if we were honest with ourselves, would admit it.” Michael Manuel’s bland staging and spare décor were of no help. Given Butler and Gérard’s listless production, there could not have been much hope that La Sonnambula (Feb. 21, 1963) would survive beyond Sutherland’s interest: “To hear her was to appreciate what the art of bel canto must have been when Bellini wrote the opera to show off the leading soprano’s voice.” Despite a libretto many consider absurd, La Sonnambula would be back. More surprising have been the iterations of Adriana Lecouvreur since the 1960s. In 1903, Caruso and Cavalieri failed to make a success of Cilea’s melodrama. In the late 1930s, Ponselle resigned from the company over Johnson’s refusal to program the opera. But Tebaldi’s wish was Bing’s command. In vocal crisis, she withdrew before the end of the run. A compliant handmaiden for divas more dramatically than vocally secure, and long the object of managerial and critical scorn, Adriana Lecouvreur has resurfaced once each decade.55

  FAREWELL

  The Saturday matinée of La Bohème on April 16, 1966, closed out the final subscription season at the Old Met. At eight o’clock that evening, the curtain came up on the farewell concert sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera Guild; it came down at 1:25 a.m. the next day. From the set of Tannhäuser’s Hall of Song, former baritone and now executive stage manager Osie Hawkins called the roll of retired stars, each of whom took a place on the stage to the cheers of the crowd: in alphabetical order, Marian Anderson, Alexander Kipnis, Marjorie Lawrence (in her wheelchair), Lotte Lehmann, Giovanni Martinelli, Patrice Munsel, Lily Pons, Elisabeth Rethberg, Bidù Sayão, Risë Stevens, and many more, thirty-one in all. The history of the Metropolitan back to Martinelli’s 1913 debut paraded before an audience attuned to the emotional pitch of the occasion. And as the honored guests made their entrances, the corresponding section of the chorus seated on the stage rose in tribute: the basses for Kipnis, t
he sopranos for Lawrence, and so on. When Lotte Lehmann walked in, everyone stood.

  A concert of fifty-seven artists, some few of whom had sung under Johnson, opened with the Lucia di Lammermoor sextet. Dorothy Kirsten (who sang “Depuis le jour”), Robert Merrill (“Eri tu”), and Regina Resnik (in the Carmen quintet) would continue on at Lincoln Center. Especially moving were the turns of those for whom this would be the last hurrah. A long ovation was touched off by Licia Albanese’s “Un bel dì”; to shouts of “Save the Met,” she kissed her hand and bent to touch the stage floor with her fingers. Another was for Eleanor Steber as Vanessa. This line from Barber’s quintet must have been achingly poignant: “Let me look around once more. Who knows when I shall see this house again!” Kurt Baum, too, made his adieu that night. But the most thunderous applause was reserved for Milanov. Near the end of the concert, with Tucker, she sang the final duet from Andrea Chénier. Bravos mixed with cries of “We love you, Zinka” lasted a full five minutes.

  The gala was also the opportunity to show off the roster that had defined the first sixteen years of Bing’s regime, artists who had made their debuts after 1950. Nicolai Gedda (in the final Faust trio) was adept in all the languages and nearly all the styles then current at the house. Jon Vickers (“Winterstürme”) had become the Siegmund, Florestan, Don José, and Samson of his generation. Régine Crespin (in the Gioconda-Laura duet) had made her mark in Strauss, Wagner, and Verdi. James McCracken (in the “Sì, pel ciel” duet from Otello) had served a comprimario apprenticeship with the company before making his name elsewhere and returning to sing major roles. And Teresa Stratas (in the “Soave sia il vento” trio from Così fan tutte) had jumped from the ranks of the Parsifal Flower maidens to Micaela and Mimì. Four of the superstars Bing had brought to the Met were also on the gala program: Renata Tebaldi and Franco Corelli (the act 2 Manon Lescaut duet), Birgit Nilsson (Brünnhilde’s “Immolation”), and Leontyne Price (Leonora’s act 4 aria from Il Trovatore). Among the dazzling newcomers of 1965–66, Grace Bumbry, Mirella Freni, Nicolai Ghiaurov, James King, Alfredo Kraus, Pilar Lorengar, Sherrill Milnes, Renata Scotto, only Montserrat Caballé was on hand (in the Rosenkavalier trio).

  There were other, even more notable absences, Lauritz Melchior and Helen Traubel, both of whom had had bitter clashes with Bing. Then there were the stars Bing drew to the Met who had shone brightly and then had disappeared for various reasons in the years before the gala. Joan Sutherland had left in 1964 of her own volition and would return in 1966–67. Antonietta Stella was dismissed after just four seasons, likely because she challenged the general manager’s interdiction of the solo bow. Cesare Valletti had been let go for reasons still obscure. Victoria de los Angeles was offended when Bing chose Farrell for Manuel De Falla’s Atlantida. Farrell herself (not a Bing favorite) sang only forty-seven performances, a total that would have been far greater had she taken on the Wagnerian heroines to which she was so splendidly suited. The most glaring absence at the farewell was that of the most famously difficult of all sopranos, Maria Callas. Callas had sung at the Met for two seasons, 1956–57 and 1957–58. In November of what would have been the third, Bing fired her in as public a manner as he could contrive. She had committed herself in writing to alternating Lady Macbeth with Violetta and, for the first time, to the national tour. But the diva changed her mind, presenting the lame excuse that toggling between the heavier and the lighter Verdi roles, even with a week’s rest in between, would invite vocal strain. Bing suggested she replace Violetta with Tosca or Lucia, upon which Callas retorted: “My voice is not an elevator, going up and down.” When she failed to comply with her agreement by the deadline Bing set, he sacked her for breach of contract, to the outrage of the press and the public. The story made news the world over. Bing was happy to welcome Callas back in 1965 for two sold-out Toscas.56

  The standard of performance at the Old Met, even in Bing’s best years, fluctuated markedly. The disparity was reflected in the gala when Arturo Sergi took the stage as Edgardo, Mary Curtis-Verna as Aïda. That said, in any given week during the last decade and a half on 39th Street, operagoers could hear singers who shook the walls with their mighty voices, others who wafted shimmering pianissimos through the theater, and some capable of both. There were those who captured audiences with the passion of their song and, more rarely, with the subtlety of their art. Some even had compelling acting skills that enlivened the strategies of the new directors. And a few possessed a personal alchemy of sound, presence, and dramatic instinct that made an irrefutable case for calling Bing’s Met a house of stars.

  PARIS TOUR

  Not long after the gala, in late May-June 1966, the Met made its second trip to Paris. Fifty-five years had passed since Gatti-Casazza, Toscanini, and the New York troupe had played the Théâtre du Châtelet. If in 1910 the French public and critics had been unfairly harsh, even antagonistic toward the American company, the negative reaction this time to the stint at the Odéon was largely justified. The unevenly cast, limp productions of Le Nozze di Figaro and Il Barbiere di Siviglia were only passable at best. Bing reported to the executive committee on June 3, 1966: “I think it is wise to face up to the fact that the Paris visit was not a success. All sorts of reasons have been advanced—anti-American feelings etc., etc. some of which may or may not be true. The fact remains that our first Barber performance was not very good, particularly Roberta Peters was tired and not in good voice. The Figaro in my view was an excellent performance but it appears that the majority of the Paris public and press expected the Metropolitan to come with Leontyne Price, Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli, etc. . . . When the invitation for this particular visit in this lovely little theater was made and it became quite clear that we could not possibly do anything but our two smallest works, Barber and Figaro, I did not have the strength to resist the temptation of a Paris visit.”

  EIGHT

  In Transit, 1966–1975

  AMERICAN OPERA

  LINCOLN CENTER

  The Final Lap

  ON SEPTEMBER 29, 1962, more than four years before the farewell to the old house, the Met made its Lincoln Center debut at the newly completed Philharmonic Hall, renamed Avery Fisher Hall in 1973. The Manuel De Falla program opened with El Amor Brujo, followed by a badly truncated version of his unfinished dramatic cantata Atlantida. The Times congratulated the Metropolitan on daring to be represented by the Western hemisphere premiere of Falla’s composition, all the while deploring the deep cuts inflicted on his magnum opus: twenty-two soloists were reduced to just three, Eileen Farrell (Leontyne Price had first been asked), George London, and Jean Madeira. Meanwhile, the company’s future home next door was nothing more than an immense water hole, dubbed “Lake Bing.” And to the general manager’s fury, construction had been bumped by the New York State Theater, whose priority was dictated by the opening of the 1964 World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows.1

  The long last lap of the Met’s journey northward began in the late 1930s. Otto Kahn’s recurrent dream of a new house, born with the promise he made to Giulio Gatti-Casazza in 1908, had died in the late 1920s with the sale of his 57th Street property. The protagonist of the 1929 and early 1930s chapter of the story was John D. Rockefeller Jr. and its setting his pharaonic Depression-era “Radio City” on Fifth Avenue at 50th Street. Both Kahn and Rockefeller came up empty. We pick up the trail we left off in chapter 5 in the late 1930s with talks between board member Charles Spofford and Fiorello La Guardia. New York’s mayor wanted to repurpose the Shriners’ Mecca Temple for both the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan. Spofford was considering a site in Central Park at Columbus Circle.

  Another decade elapsed before two external events finally triggered the realization of the long-deferred ambition. In 1949, Congress voted authorization of Title I, granting subsidies for land costs associated with urban renewal and allowing cultural and educational facilities to be included in the package. The act was destined to mediate the encounter of Robert Moses with the Metropolitan.
As chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, he was enticed by the prospect of federal funds and the value added the Met would lend neighborhood restoration. Moses first proposed a block south of Washington Square, which was rejected as out of the way and too costly. He then suggested Columbus Circle, just west of Central Park, but thought better of it when a convention center, later the Coliseum, struck him as ideally suited to that particular spot. The majority of Met directors continued to argue for staying put. Late in 1953, Moses attempted yet another overture: he offered a large blighted tract at Lincoln Square, bounded by 61st and 65th Streets and Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues, that could be had for very little. Again, the board stalled; Moses threatened to call off the deal. At this point, the directors grudgingly asked architect Wallace K. Harrison to draft a design with which to initiate a fund-raising campaign. Harrison, married to the daughter of John D. Rockefeller Jr., Abigail, had drawn up the plans for the proposed Rockefeller Center opera house in the early 1930s, and had been a principal architect on such mammoth projects as the United Nations and the Albany State Plaza.

  A second event intervened, unrelated to the tangle of Metropolitan and governmental agendas: the purchase of Carnegie Hall by a developer out to demolish the grand old landmark and erect an office tower in its place. The Philharmonic was on notice that in three years it would be homeless. Its board looked to the same Harrison for help. He found himself brokering the partnership of the opera and the symphony. In 1955, the two organizations agreed to approach John D. Rockefeller III. An exploratory committee was formed with Rockefeller as chair. By spring 1956, the committee had morphed into Lincoln Center, Inc., and the game was officially on. It was not until February 21, 1957, that the Met made a formal commitment to Lincoln Center. And it was Rockefeller who added George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, unhappy at City Center, to the mix that would later include a repertory theatre, a library and museum, and finally an educational institution, ultimately the Juilliard School. The many holders of block after block of real estate had to be brought around to the demolition of their buildings. As it happened, Joseph P. Kennedy owned a large warehouse on the site. Hostile to all Rockefellers and indifferent to the arts, Kennedy kept matters tied up in the courts for almost two years. At long last, on May 14, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, before a crowd of two thousand onlookers, turned over the first shovel of dirt for what would become the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Leonard Bernstein led the New York Philharmonic in Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” and then served as master of ceremonies for a concert in which, representing the Metropolitan, Risë Stevens sang the “Habanera,” Leonard Warren the “Prologo” from Pagliacci.2