Music: Reiner for Bodanzky

Inspired by its success with the Wagner Ring cycle last year (TIME, Nov. 4), the San Francisco Opera Association made plans months ago to repeat it next season, again engaged Soprano Kirsten Flagstad and Tenor Lauritz Melchior, tried to get Conductor Artur Bodanzky, who had performed wonders with its ragged run-down orchestra. Last week from Vienna, Conductor Bodanzky cabled his refusal on the grounds that the San Francisco orchestra pit was too small for Wagner, that he could not do without the extra musicians whom he would have to take from Manhattan. San Francisco thereupon appointed Conductor Fritz Reiner, who proved himself an expert opera conductor in Philadelphia last year, is now at London’s Covent Garden.