Contributions: Number One to the Met

"My job is to spend money, not to raise it," says the Metropolitan Opera's resident patrician Rudolf Bing. But the general manager of the Met is not opposed to receiving contributions—and last week he got a big one. Eastern Air Lines announced that it was giving the Met $500,000, which will enable Bing & Co. to produce a new Ring cycle of four Wagnerian operas to be presented in as many years.

Eastern's president, Floyd Hall, who has constantly sought to upgrade the company's promotion and advertising (its television commercial, "The Birds," won an award at Cannes in 1966), decided...

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