Books › Musical Courier 1911-03-22: Vol 62 Iss 12, 1911 › scan 22
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Musical Courier 1911-03-22: Vol 62 Iss 12, 1911
91 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 23. See the scan on archive.org.
1BOSTON OPERA STATEMENT.
3The Musical Courier is in receipt of the following official communication, headed "Boston Opera Company," and signed by the Board of Directors, N. L. Amster, Samuel Carr, Frederick S. Converse, Ralph C. Flanders, Eben D. Jordan, Otto H. Kahn, Charles M. Loeffler, Thomas N. Perkins, Theodore N. Vail, Walter C. Baylies, George W. Chadwick, George R. Fearing, Jr., Charles Hayden, Robert Jordan, Gardiner M. Lane, Francis Peabody, Eugene V. R. Thayer:
5In announcing its third season of grand opera, the directors of the Boston Opera Company wish to call the attention of the stockholders and public to certain minor changes outlined herein and which are the outcome of most careful consideration, based upon the experience of its first two seasons.
7Although its second season is not yet completed, the Boston Opera House already has to its credit several remarkable achievements. Perhaps the greatest of these is its ability to produce grand opera with a splendor and historical accuracy of mounting and an ensemble of vocalists and instrumentalists which have made it comparable with the old and famous opera houses of the world. The ideal held in view from the first has been that of artistic excellence. The Boston public would tolerate nothing less than the highest esthetic standards and in response to this demand the quality of the opera given this year has surpassed that of the first season. Although in no sense a speculative venture, the financial interests necessarily involved are so large that it has been considered wise to entrust to a competent committee an investigation of the business affairs of the company. This committee of three, Oliver Ames, T. L. Livermore and Eugene V. R. Thayer, but one of whom is a director of the company, have made a careful examination of all the items of income and expenditure, and their unanimous conclusion reads in part as follows:
9"Pursuant to your request, the undersigned as a committee have conferred with your managing director, Henry Russell, and have examined the statement of receipts and expenditures for the current season which he has furnished to us with a view to the question whether the expenditures can be adjudged excessive.
11"The time at our disposal would not have permitted us, if we had thought it practicable, to compare the details of payrolls or the other ordinary current expenses with those of other opera or theatrical companies. We have, however, secured from reliable authority a comparison of the expense of your company and the opera company of New York.
13"This evidence has convinced us that the quality and scale of the productions given by your company are fully as good as, if not better than, those produced in New York, aside, perhaps, from a few of the noted singers engaged by the Metropolitan Company. The cost of producing opera in Boston is as low, if not lower, than in New York City."
15This statement is itself a tribute, upon the one hand, to the skill with which the business concerns of the house have been handled by those whose duty it has been to expend moneys and audit accounts, and, upon the other hand, to the ability of the managing director in securing singers at reasonable salaries, in harmonizing large numbers of persons of sensitive temperament, and in ordering the multitude of mechanical details pertaining to the presentation of an opera.
17All the orders for properties and other supplies go into the hands of the business manager, Mr. Macdonald, who gives a large part of his time to making purchases in the cheapest market, and who vouches for all bills before checks are drawn in payment. Each year, also, the committee which makes up the budget for the ensuing season goes over the contracts which the impresario makes with the artists he engages. All these accounts and contracts receive in addition the inspection of Eben D. Jordan, who gives them the same careful attention which he bestows upon his personal business affairs.
19With these explanations, the box holders and stockholders are invited to examine the statements which are appended.
21March 4, 1911.
22Capital Stock: General Subscription …………$288,800,000
23Subscribed by E. D. Jordan….. 111,200.00
24400,000.00
26Total Book Value of Assets, including Costumes, Scenery, Properties, Electrical Stage Equipment and Music, at end of 17th week (March 4) …………$332,222.00
27Promotion and Preliminary Expenses to November, 1909……. 67,778.00
28Balance of Promotion and Preliminary Expenses paid out of current receipts ………… 30,617.00
30FIRST SEVENTEEN WEEKS
31"Out of Twenty"
32SEASON OF 1910-1911:
33Subscription (Including Boxes) ………… 281,608.50
34Window Sales ……………………….. 178,332.10
35Other Receipts; Programs, Concerts, Soda Fountains, etc. ………………… 57,932.40
36Total Receipts ………………………. 516,973.00
37Total Expenses ………………………. $646,214.00
38Receipts, as above …………………… 516,973.00
40Deficit, …………………$129,241.00, of which $35,000 was for necessary preliminary work for the season done during the summer of 1910.
42This deficit has been met by E. D. Jordan and includes $85,121 of assets made this season, which he has generously contributed to the capital of the company.
43Value of Total Capacity, 17 weeks ………… 700,281.50
44Actual Box Office Receipts ……………… 465,473.60
45Possible Increase of Receipts … 234,807.90 one of two readings
46(Not including income from Programs, Concerts, etc.) one of two readings
47Possible Increase of Receipts … 234,807.90 (Not including income from Programs, Concerts, etc.) one of two readings
48Value of Total Capacity, 17 weeks ………… 700,281.50
49Total Expenditure, including Summer Season .. 646,214.00
50Possible Profit for 17 weeks, if playing to Total Capacity …………………………………. $54,067.50
52The season of 1911-12 will be for the period of eighteen weeks, beginning on November 27, 1911, and ending on March 30, 1912.
54The terms of the subscription sale have been arranged as follows: All the stockholders subscribing for four performances per week will have the privilege of being the first to draw for seats. Those selecting seats for three performances per week will be the next in order in the drawing. No subscriptions for less than two performances per week will be accepted at the drawing. These conditions, although more stringent than those of the past season, nevertheless permit of a more liberal choice of purchase than was originally decided upon and adopted for the first subscription sale.
56The directors wish once more to remind the stockholders of the remarkable standard of excellence that has been maintained in the performances of the current season and to emphasize the necessity of their cordial and practical support of an organization that has done so much to enhance the standing of Boston as a musical and artistic center. Its continued prosperity depends upon the unfaltering appreciation of the music-loving public. If each subscriber will give his fair proportion of support, there will be no further financial problem. If the majority of stockholders subscribe for season tickets on the basis outlined above the permanence of the Boston opera is assured.
58During the third season it is expected the same general policy will be followed as has obtained in the past. The same methods of co-operation with the Metropolitan Opera Company and that of Chicago will have effect; the interchange of services of artists will be made as during the current season and the same excellence of standard be maintained. Several new operas will be added to the repertory.
60For the benefit of our subscribers and the general public a special office of inquiry in charge of Harold Durant relative to all questions pertaining to the opera for this season or next will be opened at the Opera House.
62THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS.
64LATEST bulletins from the opera belt chronicle the not altogether astonishing information that Arthur Nevin's "Twilight" will not twinkle at the Metropolitan this season. Perhaps with the dawn of some future winter the managerial sun may shine more favorably upon Mr. Nevin's work and upon American opera in general than is the case at this moment after the two recent cloudbursts.
66SOMEBODY points out that a violinist in order to be well up on the history of his instrument must read 379 books covering that field. To us it seems, however, that if a fiddler desires to be part of that history he hardly would find time to read 379 books devoted to one subject alone. Let the critic do it.
68MAX REGER has declared his willingness to accept the conductorship of the famous Meiningen Orchestra (to succeed the late Wilhelm Berger) if at the same time he could be enabled to retain his position at the Leipsic University, a branch of his activity to which he is greatly attached.
70BOGUS VIOLINS.
72The business in bogus violins and musical instruments is bound to stop in this country under the vigorous blows that are extended, through the aid of the Government, for the Government surely will not stop. A few days ago the New York Herald published the following interesting item on the situation, one of the many that have recently appeared in the daily papers:
74NEW CROP GROWS IN VIOLIN SWINDLE.
76MUSIC DEALERS SAY OUTFIT OF "GENUINE STRADIVARI" FROM HOBOKEN FACTORY IS KEEPING UP.
78Violins made in Germany and Italy and retouched and labelled in Hoboken, N. J., according to leading music dealers of this city, are being offered for sale in New York as the genuine Stradivarius instruments. Pasted at the bottom of the inside of the instruments are found yellow slips, faded and torn, bearing the reputed signature of the famous violin maker of the seventeenth century, Antonio Stradivarius.
80Hardly a week passes that a violin represented as a genuine Stradivarius does not find its way to one of the music houses. The purchaser, who believes that he has acquired a real treasure for $50 or $100, passes the ancient looking instrument into the hands of an expert, only to be informed that he has parted with good money for a bogus violin which is not worth more than a few dollars.
82Recently a wealthy man from St. Louis who was staying at the Hotel Gotham purchased a bogus Stradivarius in a Second avenue pawn shop, but when he exhibited the instrument at a music store in Fifth avenue he was told that the violin was worth $10. He had paid $100 for the instrument and was convinced that the violin was worth at least $25,000. David Schoenfeld, of No. 285 Central Park West, paid $2,750 for an imitation Amati, which had been represented to him as the work of Nicolaus Amati, a famous Cremona violin maker of the seventeenth century. He entered suit in the Supreme Court and obtained a judgment against the man who sold him the instrument.
84The violin fake is an old one. It has been indulged in by private people, musicians, by dealers and repairers, by wholesale importers and by so called wealthy amateurs, going about the country under another guise but really having a trunk full of instruments, which they finally dispose of at enormous prices, with false labels, excellent imitations, generally poor toned instruments, but effective profit makers.
86Big firms, however, are the ones that have been chiefly guilty of this, because their opportunities for purchase and sale have been so much larger, and the Government of the United States or the Treasury Department or whatever it may be should go carefully through the record of these importations in the various Custom Houses and ascertain where in Europe these instruments were purchased or made to order, and how much really was paid for them in duty, or what participation these firms had in any kind of swindling operation, such as the bringing in of a valuable violin by some artist, who returns with a cheap instrument when he leaves the country.
88Much accumulated material can be found that will help the Government, if its search is carried on forcibly, to get to the bottom of this thievery, which is not only a wrong, because it is against the law and a criminal process, but because it introduces fake violins in houses where there is an anxiety for a fine instrument. That is the point for the Government to observe in the case of the fake violin, which is a matter of such grave importance that it requires constant and careful watching not to disappear from the public eye.
90ANNUALLY the circus visits our town, and this spring the advance notices promise a "flying horse." Brünnhilde threatens to secure a legal injunction against the exhibition. Apropos, the circus represents the "Nibelungen" drama of the juvenile world, but with born freaks and real animals, giants, dwarfs, and tank performers.
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