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In Milan, Signer Giulio Gatti-Casazza, a marine engineer by profession, had taken hold of La Seal a Opera House in a time when that historic institution was in a bad situation, in a couple of years had rehabilitated it in an extraordinary manner, had brought a regime of order and economy, at the same time had increased the quality of performances immensely. Here was the obvious man for the internationally minded Directors of the Metropolitan. Many of their customers thought that they should have patriotically selected an American, but they seemed of the opinion that it was better to save money under a foreigner than lose it under an American — a rather sensible American point of view — and they engaged Gatti-Casazza for a trial term of one year. And so there came to New York's opera the tall, heavy, gravely dignified, reserved, aristocratic man, whose sagacious beard is gray now after the passage of 15 years but whose deep-set eyes retain all of their studying intentness.
Gatti's coming gave promise of many ructions. He was an Italian, the first Italian to direct at the Metropolitan. There had long been a New York opera feud between the Italians and the Germans. At the first mention of the new impresario it blazed to new heights. The Germans were powerful and combative. Large sections of the New York musical world concurred with them indignantly that the rule of an Italian would mean the ruin of Wagnerian opera at the Metropolitan. Gatti, too, had a reputation for keeping singers sternly under discipline. The singers at the Metropolitan, like most singers, loved discipline not at alL They knitted their brows and waited. The new manager stipulated in his contract that he would bring with him Arturo Toscanini, then already famous. This orchestra conductor enjoyed a well earned renown for handling singers without gloves.
Gatti's first year was in a vague sort of copartnership with Andreas Dippel, who directed the German operas. The German and Italian factions lined up according to the logic of this double management. There were intrigues, counter-intrigues, petitions to the Board of Directors, blasts in the newspapers. At the end of the season Gatti was reengaged. The Board of Directors made it clear that he would continue as sole manager.
The sources of his victory lay in various factors. Under his guidance the German operas grew better. It might have been noted in the first place that Gatti was an ardent Wagnerite then, as he is today, He had made a specialty of Wagner at La Scala. And he had brought with him a prodigious Wagnerian conductor in Toscanini. And then he was a first-rate master of economical management, the sort of man who would shrink a deficit. It did not take the clever business men on the Board of Directors long to observe that. They supported him vigorously. With such sure support an impresario is in a favorable position to deal with singers. The gentleman from Milan understood the art of handling vocal artists. With an unbending dignity and awe-inspiring aloofness, he squelched the natural operatic tendency to loud quarrels, public statements of righteous indignation, webs of intrigue, various forms of sabotage. People who were not amenable to reason went. There was no appeal from his decision.