Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-02-20


a minimum of over six hundred thousand dol
lars in salaries, while Mr.. Hammersten's eight
big stars draw not less than three hundred and
fifty thousand dollars. And yet these stars are
only small proportion of the personnel of
either company. In addition to the artists
named the Metropolitan carries sixty five prin-
cipals on its payrolls. with salaries ranging
from one thousand to fifteen thousand dollars
for the season. For principals alone. the
Metropolitan is paying over million dollars
annually. This is the result of the star system
carried to foolish extreme.
Before the Star System
TN Maurice Grau's day, one million dollars
covered every expense for the entire season.
and included the salaries of such stars as the
De Reszkes. Melba, Eames, Sembrich. Scalchi,
Schumann- Heink, Maurel and Plancon. But
in those days it was considered sufficient to
give four subscription performances in New
York and one in Philadelphia with popular
priced Saturday night performance in New
York city. To-day the Metropolitan gives
of these twelve. it is significant that the only
ones that yield steady profit are the five sub
scnption performances inherited from the
Grau regime.
What is the sense of these seven extra per-
formances. if they yield no profit? asks the SEN
sible reader. Right here we get the proper in
sight on the star system. To Guido Mr.. Ham
merstein the Metropolitan engaged more
singers than it had use for. To make work for
them and to preempt operate territory which
was open to invasion by Hammerstein per-
formances are given in Brooklyn and Baltimore
and at the New Theater. What is the result?
Doubling the orchestra. doubling the chorus
and ballet. doubling the stagehands, and doub
ling the number of rehearsals. All of this is
exceedingly costly. Grau kept his orchestra
expense close to seventy-fve thousand dollars
for the season. Two hundred and fifty thou
sand dollars will be the cost of the Metropolitan
orchestra this year. The chorus and ballet will
cost another hundred thousand dollars. The
expense for costumes and wardrobe has jumped
to a hundred and fifty thousand The army of
stagehands. property men, and electricians will
eat up another hundred thousand dollars. In
every department the expense has been doub-
led and trebled. And the result is that the
last year of Mr.. Conrieds regime brought
two hundred thousand-dollar deficit at the
Metropolitan, while his immediate successors
achieved a deficit of two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars in their first season. They
can hope for no better luck this year.
Meanwhile Mr.. Hammerstein has been
branching out. and his ventures in educational
opera and French opera comique have proved
disastrous. The only thing accomplished SO
far has been to surfet New York with opera
beyond the point of assimilation, and the
financial consequences are more than the in
genuity of Hammerstein or the vast resources
back of the Metropolitan directors can cope
with.
A Change Il Coming
RADICAL measures in the way of retrench-
= ment or new algnments of activities may
be looked for next season: for Mr.. Hammer
stein is not in the opera business for his health.
and the group of miionaires back of the Metro
poltan constitutonaly averse to making
a habit out of a two hundred and fifty thousand
dollar deficit.
With the inevitable reaction against prevail
ing operate extravaganza will come the first
ray of hope for opera national institution
in this country: for while the elimination of
the star singer is neither probable desirable,
we shall have to follow the lead of Europe in
the practical abandonment of the star system
Once the rival New York impresarios have
learned their lesson of restraint, the market for
good singers will be open, and it will be possible
for any American city around the half million
mark in population to secure an excellent COM
pany and maintain its own season of opera at
cost within economic bounds.
The final blow to the prevailing star system
will fall when Americans will follow the lead of
Italy, Russia, France, and Germany and de-
mand that opera be sung in the vernacular.
Whenever the question of opera in English is
preached here our foreign born mpresarios and
all their cohorts break out into violent abuse of
inartistic desires. The music is fitted to the
text and when the text is altered the artistic
effect is entirely lost, is their stock form of OBJ
lection. Quite true That is admitted freely
but if the Italians, the German and the
French, who are wont to regard as bar
bar1ans IN matters of art, can stand for that
artistic perverslon,-nay, insist upon it in their