Music: Discord at the Met

The chorus at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Opera, whose members burst into song for about $14 each a night, has never been one of the company’s greatest attractions. For its 61st annual season, opening in November, the Met’s board of directors proposed to fire 16 choristers, reduce the chorus’ size from 94 to 78. The notes it promptly heard from the American Guild of Musical Artists (president: Baritone Lawrence Tibbett) were decidedly unmusical. The union insisted that its own board should have the say on how big the chorus should be and who could be fired. The Met refused to arbitrate.

Last week the Met’s board chairman George A. Sloan sent a gloomy letter to 7,000 season-ticket subscribers. Wrote he: “We would render a greater public service if we refuse to give opera [this winter] rather than surrender to the union the right of management to determine the number and professional competence of singing artists.”