Between Chicago's Samuel Insull and Philadelphia's Mary Louise Curtis Bok there was never much in common except that they both backed grand opera. For reasons which everyone knows. Chicago will have no grand opera this winter.
Last week the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company also suspended performances for a year, but its reason was not quite Chicago's. Advance sales were bad. but it was also announced that Conductor Leopold Stokowski wanted an off-year to perfect a new form of "drama with music" for 1933-34. The Curtis-Bok fortune is far, far from collapse but Mrs. Bok has the expensive Curtis Institute on her hands. If in the next few months another patron for Philadelphia's opera appears, her friends suspect that she will not be sorry.
Blaring Redhead