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A mirage that has been flickering for weeks over a whole city block on Manhattan's upper West Side, ceased flickering last week and stood motionless, a fixed vision. It has the shape of a skyscraper of the Babylo-American style. It is the home-to-be of the Metropolitan Opera Company, a towering image of efficient U. S. culture.
Just as squabbles and hair-pulling are not unknown in the Metropolitan's wings, so the course of events leading up to last week's vote in the Metropolitan board of directors was not without conflict and a tinge of acrimony. Last December Otto Hermann Kahn, chairman of the board and largest stockholder, bought the city block bounded by 56th and 57th Sts. and by 8th and 9th Aves. He did this quietly, anonymously, and proceeded to bring about the Metropolitan's vote of removal. There is a conservative faction in the producing company, stockholders with blood of deepest indigo and an inbred suspicion of change. To control this element, Mr. Kahn transfused "new blood" into the board—William Kissam Vanderbilt, Marshall Field, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney and others. But there impended a split with the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company, comprising the conspicuous families who built the old House 43 years ago and still own it as their social citadel. This element feared lest Distinction and Bon Ton, like old pieces of furniture left behind by the moving men, should grow dusty in the deserted edifice while in the new one—too big to be exclusive—quality rubbed shoulders with people who were merely rich. Again Mr. Kahn came to the fore. He persuaded the real estate company to let his producing company rest the decision with the present holders of parterre boxes. To these he said: "Let there be compiled, by the 121 present box-holders, a list of 150 prospective box-holders who are eligible." The split was healed. The vote went through. The vision stands.
Conductors
Otto Klemperer, seven-foot German conductor here for an engagement as guest leader of the New York Symphony, walked on the stage of Mecca Auditorium, bent his big frame to bow to a fascinated audience, turned to the orchestra. He lifted his great arms and the entire orchestra fell under the shadow of his wings, very capable wings that have sheltered most of the prominent orchestras of Europe. New Yorkers, who like to see as well as hear, watched him fascinated, saw him hunch his great head down between his shoulders, pick with his long fingers short staccatos from the very heart of the orchestra; in a passage for strings saw him turn his back on half his band, scrunch himself down to a miserly six and a half feet and, hair waving, fly at his violins, draw unfathomable" strength from their very hearts. Musicians sat with eyes closed, contented and appreciative of his reading of Haydn's Symphony in C minor, Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony and Beethoven's Seventh.