Music: 25

Last month, with the help of Horace Johnson, head of Manhattan’s Federal Music Project, New York City’s musical Mayor LaGuardia decided to bring Wagner to the man-of-the-street. Engaging such top-flight Metropolitan Wagnerians as Lauritz Melchior, Elisabeth Rethberg and Friedrich Schorr to sing with WPA’s New York City Symphony, he sponsored a series of Wagner concerts at Rockefeller’s Center Theatre. Seats: 25¢ to $1. So successful were the concerts that last week Mayor LaGuardia and Director Johnson decided to repeat their venture, this time with Tschaikowsky’s music instead of Wagner’s. Storming the Center Theatre, 3,581 music-minded Manhattanites made the Rockefeller Center concerts one of the biggest WPA musical successes on record.