(8 of 8)
Why Not Gamble? Some advance-guard music lovers have complained that instead of spending money on works such as Don Carlo and The Flying Dutchman, which were never highly profitable, Bing should have gambled the same money on a more contemporary work, such as Alban Berg's formidable atonal opera, Wozzeck. Bing's answer to that is that he would like to do Wozzeck, but he cannot afford right now to overlook the fate of another contemporary opera, Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, which was withdrawn after two seasons, so offended one opera lover that he spat in the box-office window. (Says John Gutman: "Whenever I mention Wozzeck, Bing threatens to put me in the box office." The Met still faces the problem of having to run a new production (cost: between $50,000 and $70,000) for at least five seasons to get its investment back.
Hamstrung as he is by lack of money, Rudi Bing thinks that the most he can do is "to try to build up the stock repertory in a contemporary way." Says he: "I think we must do away with 40-year-old productions even if they were great in their day." He believes that "new productions must not be thought of as a luxury that one may indulge in if one happens to strike a gold mine. New productions are as important to have as singers and an orchestra. I may want eight and get only four, but I cannot have none." He has convinced the board that he is right; they have already tentatively approved four (most likely popular favorites) for next season.
To Rudi Bing, the paradox of the old Met is the fact that, despite the old sets and old costumes, standbys such as Traviata and Trovatore "still sell out the house." His task, he thinks, is "to get the public to demand new and better productions." He has to admit, from box-office records, that so far "the public just does not care." But, says Rudi Bing, with the look of a man setting out to do something about it: "I do care."
* Everyone to his own taste.
* Most notable response: asked for $1,000,000 in 1940 to help buy up the deed of the opera house, 166,000 opera lovers from coast to coast topped the amount by $57,000.
& No kin to Republican Germany's Socialist President Friedrich Ebert (1919-1925).