New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-10-06
Performances Were Given at Three
Houses, at a Cost of Two
Million Dollars
By II. E. KREHBIEL
1918. By II. e. Kyehbiel
CHAPTER X

cally all the year round. There is, more
over, greater variety in the character of
the representations. Counting operas and
ballots, there was a greater number of per-
formances at the two official lyric theatres
of Paris in 1908, the last year whose off,
cal figures are available, than in the New
York season of 190910; but here is a sig
nlhcant fact: the combined receipts of the
Grand Opera and Opera Comque for the
whole year did not equal those of the Met
ropoitan Opera House during the five
months in New York The Grand Opera,
to be explicit, took in 100000 in the
twelve months of 1908; the Opera Comique
S49s,sOo, making total of $1,124,S0o If
the receipts of the Metropolitan Opera
House from November, 1909, to April, 1910,
did not reach this sum little reliance can
be placed on the statements which were
made from time to time during the period
by its officials
This is a large amount of r,.ncy to draw
from the people of one city for a single
institution of amusement-using that term
in its most dignfed sense-but to it must
be added the sum taken in by Mr.. Ham
merstein's Manhattan Opera House during
similar period of twenty weeks, and to
make the comparison complete also the
money contributed by the public for pre-
limnary season of two months of opera
to which Mr.. Hammerstein applied the
epithet "educational' and some weeks of
a vain effort to reestabish the Italian form
in its old home at the Academy of Music.
Both seasons failed, but the mere fact that
they were undertaken with the regular sea-
sons IN sight proved that the managers
were obsessed with the idea that New York
vas harboring such a passion for the lyric
drama as to be willing to put into the cx-
chequers of the managers nearly twice as
much money as had ever been asked of any
city in the world. regardless of it's size, and
support over 100 concerts of magnitude
and first class Importance, and some sixty
theatres, little and big, besides
Since the Metropolitan Opera House
opened its doors to the public in 1883 the
cost of giving opera there has more than
quadrupled, the larger part of the increase
having grown up since Mr.. Grau laid down
the relns OF management. In 1909 the d-
rectors of the lessee company cheerfully
announced a willingness to face a loss of
at least $300,000, whereas it was an open
secret that the closing years of the ad-
ministration of Maurice Grau and the open
ing years Of Mr.. Conried's had yielded
revenues which enabled those gentlemen to
retire from their professional labors with
fortunes in their pockets. The largest
dividend which the stockholders of an
opera company ever received, in all proba-
biity, paid in the last year of the
Grau regime, when thirty-two operas were
brought forward in the subscription sea-
son. I'm the season which we have in mind
whose losses were probably greater than
the large sum which The directors faced
with equanimity a year before nine more
novelties, or quasi novelties, we're brought
forward, including the French works at
the New Theatre: but there was what
should have been an extra source of in
come-namcly, the New Theatre itself 1t
is, therefore,, not to be wondered at that
critics of knowledge and experience have
continued to look back with regret as we'll
as admiration tc the time when great
works, new to the reportory, were brought
forward with devotion and beauty at the
Metropolitan Opera House, and old works
were performed with vocal spendor never
equalicd since.
when both an artistic and a financial credit
was changed into debit but there has
never been doubt in the minds Of ex-
pericnccd observers but that too small
knowledge and appreciation Of artistic
needs, too little understanding of artistic
method, and too mean an appreciation of
the wishes of the iudicious public, com
hned with too willing "A Difference to the
whims of a few fashonables and amateurs
too great "A disregard of the rights Of some
Of the stockholders Of the operating com
oany, too large a complacency on the part
OF the owners Of the opera house. too
much disregard of the things which make
for public respect and pcrmanency of in
terest, and finally and chiefly too eager a
desire to destroy the opposition of Mr..
iammc rstcin, were the principal contribu-
tory cruises to so much of the Metropoli-
tan'5 season as must be voted an artistic
failure.
! II seemed difficult al the time, it is diff