Word: gatty
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Enrico Caruso was the tenor, Arturo Toscanini the conductor on that November night in 1908 when Giulio Gatti-Casazza mounted his first performance as manager of Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera Company. The opera was A'ida, chosen by Gatti out of reverence for his friend and hero, Composer Giuseppe Verdi. Lately Gatti has been accused of being old-fashioned and reactionary. But last week as he began his farewell season at the Metropolitan, the sphinxy Gatti behaved as if he had never heard the carping. Again for the opening night he chose...
With his resignation Gatti made public the correspondence between himself and Board Chairman Paul Drennan Cravath. Mr. Cravath's letters were suitably regretful: "I find it difficult to adjust myself to the thought of the Metropolitan without you in charge. . . ." Sphinxian Gatti was characteristically formal: "This decision is taken in consideration of my rather mature age [65], and of the continued and exhausting hardships of a long directorial career...
...Gatti could, if he would, have been eloquent on the subject of his career. He could have told how he and his friend Arturo Toscanini arrived at the Metropolitan 26 years ago, how between them they had given artistic and financial authority to a company rich with singers, poor in discipline. Gatti could have boasted rightfully of his business prowess. In the Opera's palmy days had he not made performances pay for themselves in addition to providing a $1,000,000 nest egg? He could have recalled many historic scenes: plump little Marcella Sembrich making her operatic farewell...
...Gatti was in no mood for such reminiscences last week. His pride was hurt. The $1,000,000 surplus had been eaten by Depression. The Metropolitan directors, under Chairman Cravath, had twice voted to beg publicly for money. Their appeals had brought forth life-saving cash but also sharp criticism of Gatti's administration: he was oldfashioned; he was a reactionary, a slave to routine; he was unwilling to experiment with new ideas for scenery and staging...
Ever since the tin-cup campaigns reorganization at the Metropolitan has seemed inevitable. Gatti's resignation, long rumored (TIME, Nov. 28, 1932, et seq.), merely focused in the headlines the necessity for change. When the directors choose to elect Gatti's successor, Chairman Cravath and his associates have a long list of applicants to consider...