Music: Opera Passes Hat

Broadcasting good music, like casting bread upon the waters, sometimes has unexpected returns. When Manhattan’s Metropolitan Opera started its current campaign to raise $1,000,000, it hoped for widespread giving, naturally expected most from Manhattan’s operagoers. Last week the fund’s contributions had reached $677,344. Almost a third of this sum had trickled in from small contributors who knew the Met only from its Saturday afternoon broadcasts.

Among 102,500 radio listeners who sent contributions of 50¢ to $5, some made touching sacrifices. One family gave up its Sunday roast to send $1.71. From an old ladies’ home came $1.75. One dollar bill came from a man & wife, sole inhabitants of an island ten miles off the New Hampshire coast. Many sent letters telling how they had raised their contributions. Sample:

“Three years ago the first of Feb. I fell on the sidewalk in St. Petersburg and fractured my left hip and have been a bed and wheelchair invalid. I am 76 years, I got complications and ended with arthrtis, I take shots of vitamin B and sufer for which I pay my Dr. $3.00 I am doing without it so I can send it to the Met. Opera. If this works out all right and I dont have a return of that awful pain I may send $3 later.”