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Hand to Mouth. Bing's aim, quite properly, is to save as much of the season as possible. He may succeed through a combination of Government mediation and a short-term agreement (18 months probably) that appears to be in the works. But the significance of the present confrontation goes far beyond local and temporary issues, claims of bad faith, and debates about whether the Met or its employees are really telling the truth about money. The Met's woes are linked to a nationwide crisis in funding for the arts, and the losing struggle of locally and privately supported institutions to survive the galloping inflation of the age. Just to stay afloat last year, the Met needed more than $17 million, of which around $13 million was raised mainly by tickets, subscriptions and rental fees. More than $4 million came from solicited gifts and contributions. This year, even if the unions settle for Bing's proposals, the Met will need $2,000,000 extra. "The sums we are raising now by just begging," Bing said last week, "are astronomic. We cannot go on living from hand to mouth as the Met has done for more than 80 years." What must come, clearly, is something which Bing has long been in favor of—government subsidies (federal, state and city) for the Met.
State support, which is unlikely to be easily agreed upon, would bring many changes at the Met, including a shift in the composition of the Met's board of directors—to include more people from the world of music. It might also affect Bing's autocratic methods which, if they have contributed to his labor problems, have also helped raise the Met to its current eminence. Yet for all its inherent risk, subsidy would be preferable to the present situation. A year's silence at the Met is almost unthinkable. A Met closed for good would be a cultural calamity.
*Some New York plumbers earn more than $15,000 a year, but most do not.