A rich man's ghost walked the faded red corridors of Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House last week. Singers backstage talked of little else. Board members held consultations over it. Newspapers gave front-page headlines to Augustus D. Juilliard, the name of the rich old, man who used to sit quietly and attentively listening to opera from Box No. 2.
Augustus Juilliard's money, the public was informed, had saved the life of the Metropolitan Opera Company. Author-Musician John Erskine, in his capacity as president of the Juilliard School of Music, said so. Fifty thousand Juilliard dollars had been given outright toward the $300,000 needed to guarantee another opera season (TIME, Feb. 20). Should public appeal fail to bring in the rest. Mr. Erskine implied that the Juilliard would make up the difference. Stipulations had been made, he said, to which the Metropolitan had agreed: more encouragement would be given to U. S. singers and composers; Juilliard students would be permitted to attend rehearsals; a supplementary season of opera-comique would be given in which Juilliard students would presumably play the important parts; the opera Merry Mount by Richard Leroy Stokes and Howard Hanson would surely be produced.
For a few hours after John Erskine's announcement it appeared as though the Metropolitan had in desperation sold its independence, as though Mr. Erskine would hereafter be giving orders to Manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza. People tried to withdraw their donations. They were informed that Mr. Erskine had given the wrong impression, that the Juilliard was contributing $50,000 and no more, that the Metropolitan's future next year still depended on the outcome of its campaign which, even with the Juilliard's, $50,000, had brought in only $110,000.
To many, the fact that the Juilliard was not seeing the Metropolitan through its difficulties seemed as unaccountable as Mr. Erskine's erroneous implication. When Augustus ("A. D.") Juilliard died in 1919 he was president of the Metropolitan boxowners. He had grown up in Stark County, Ohio, migrated to Manhattan, made a fortune in textiles which toward the end of his life interested him far less than the opera. He went to nearly every performance. He was in his box the night he became fatally ill. In his will he left $14,000,000 to create a Juilliard Musical Foundation which should supply funds for a school of music and give help, at the discretion of the trustees, to the Metropolitan. The Juilliard School of Music has thrived on its fat capital. Under President Erskine's administration a $3,000,000 building has been erected, where students put on their own opera. Jack & the Beanstalk, a collaboration of President Erskine and Composer Louis Gruenberg, was given as part of the housewarming.