Throughout Depression the proudest of U. S. opera companies was the San Francisco organization which, though its seasons were brief, imported expensive singers, moved into a handsome new municipal auditorium and never gasped for money. Last autumn the San Francisco Opera peaked its artistic career by presenting Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungen at a cost of some $80,000 (TIME, Nov. 4). Last week President Wallace M. Alexander of the Opera Association announced a deficit of $45,000, recommended a begging campaign for $50,000 to insure another season.
Seemingly unconcerned was Gaetano Merola, the dapper irrepressible Italian who against all odds founded the San...
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