Word: opera
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...tall, pale, olive-skinned man, Bing got his start 28 years ago managing concert artists in Vienna, his native city (he is now a British subject). He learned a bit more working with state and municipal opera houses in Germany, then went to England in 1934 as a director and general manager of John Christie's fledgling Glyndebourne company. When war came, Glyndebourne folded up for the duration. Bing got a job managing a chain of department stores...
Louis Quatorze grew bored with minuets; so he started a school of ballet, in 1661. Voltaire himself had sighed over the first ballerinas ("Ah, Camargo! How brilliant you are! But, great gods, how ravishing is also Sallé!"). Ever since, Parisians have gone ga-ga over their Paris Opera Ballet...
Scouts had picked Chicago's big Civic Opera House as "the place to open in America." While they waited for the company to arrive from Montreal, Chicago's socialites and Franco-American clubs prepared a Bourbonic welcome. There would be a huge party backstage in the famous Gold Key room on opening night. And the French Embassy was sending a diplomat to make it official...
...ballet glowed dimly under Napoleon, who wasn't much interested (although he took a troupe with him to Egypt). But when Czar Paul asked for a ballet master to teach his gawky but willing subjects, Paris taught St. Petersburg to shine. Now, in its "old age," Paris' Opera Ballet is supported by the French state. Youngsters-ules petits rats de I'Opéra Ballet"-are wards of the government, get their elementary schooling with their pirouettes. Before the company goes back to start its packed performances at home next month, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond and Washington...
Died. Rupert D'Oyly Carte, 71, millionaire owner of the world-famed D'Oyly Carte Opera Co.; in London. Son of the company's founder Richard (who brought and held together for 21 years the explosively hostile Gilbert & Sullivan collaboration, and made them the biggest money-making team in theatrical history), Rupert inherited his father's flair for show business and real estate, held controlling interests in London's Savoy, Berkeley and Claridge's hotels, the Savoy Theater, Simpson's Restaurant...