Abstract

Music

The campaign to get the public to pay $1,970,000 for the antiquated Metropolitan Opera House in New York City has begun; and the air is thick with the dust that is being thrown into the public's eyes. There has been talk of saving opera, which is not subsidized here as it is in European countries conveying to some people the idea that the producing company is in financial trouble, when in fact it is not. Or the talk is of preserving opera's historic home-conveying the notion of an opera house with which the functioning and excellence of the producing company are so integrally bound up as to be impaired if it were lost, when in fact the Metropolitan, behind and in front of the proscenium arch, is possibly the worst theater in the world for its purpose.