Opera: Lord of the Manor

(9 of 10)

Viennese pastry tray of charm. A few years ago, all three of his heldentenors suddenly came down with colds at the same time. Rather than cancel a sold-out performance of Tristan and Isolde, he cajoled each tenor into singing one act apiece. When Bing decides that an aging singer should retire, he eases the pain with a line he has polished to perfection: "Wouldn't you rather have your public say, 'Already?' than 'At last!' " Of course, if the singer won't take the hint, Bing will fire him without batting an eye.

Bing Sting. The ease with which Bing pulls off this kind of frosty switch-about has left some people with a case of the shivers. One detractor described him as having "the look of a man constantly inhaling bad odors which only he can detect." When a tenor called in sick one day, Bing smelled the odor of laziness. Immediately he dispatched an ambulance and two doctors to the tenor's door. "He sang that night," recalls Bing with a wry smile, "and very well too." Some who have felt the Bing sting claim that he has a lofty distaste for all singers and regards them as children who must be pampered or spanked. Recently he was asked: "Do you consider yourself a dictator?" "Of course!" he replied. But, of course, he is not; he is, rather, a honey-tongued Janus, able to meet any situation with the proper amount of sweetness or fight, as the occasion demands.

Thus it is that, despite the occasional grumbling, he runs a remarkably happy house. A vast majority of the best singers prefer working at the Met to anywhere else because of its superefficiency, its high morale, and its standing as the world's most important opera house. True, their squawks over federal and New York State taxes sound like anything but glowing arias, but they muddle through—rather brilliantly at times. "Singers will do anything to evade taxes," explains Bing, "so I have to cope with the names of their dogs listed as secretaries, and of their wives as managers." Birgit Nilsson once paid Bing a double-edged tribute by listing him on her income-tax report as a dependent. At all events, as Italian Soprano Mirella Freni says, "The Met is marvelous experience, a theater where one works with tranquillity in a warm, almost friendly atmosphere without nervousness. In Italy you can feel this nervousness all around you."

The most nerveless member of the company, of course, is Bing himself. He often pulls a Hitchcock and turns up onstage as a breastplated soldier in Eugen Onegin or leading the soldier's band in Faust. But he is really a frustrated conductor. In the theater, in the subway, walking along the street, his hands are continually dancing as he sings and hums some aria playing through his mind (he also knows the words and music to more than 1,000 lieder, continually amazes the singers by quoting snatches of librettos from obscure operas). At night, sitting in his office, he has been known to sneak a baton out of his desk drawer and direct with full arm movements the music pouring over the house speaker system.

Only trouble is, he hardly ever gets the beat right. Not long ago, Bing sat in the Met auditorium watching a rehearsal and conducting his own version of the rhythm, his hand discreetly fluttaring around below seat-top level. Behind him sat Conductor Thomas