Drive's End

The audience cheered itself into a hoarse croak, critics wrote rhapsodic reams and the Wagner concert Arturo Toscanini gave for his season's farewell in Manhattan last week left everyone groping for non-existent superlatives. Many a conservative New Yorker pronounced it the greatest concert within memory, credited its success not only to the little Italian conductor but also to Soprano Gertrude Kappel who majestically outdid herself as Bruennhilde in the Immolation scene from Goetterduemmerung.

Next night the Philharmonic-Symphony directors gave a dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, proudly announced they had raised the $500,000 necessary to assure the Orchestra's existence for three more seasons (TIME, April 2). Contributors of more than $5,000: Harry Harkness Flagler, Mrs. Harry Harkness Flagler, Mr. & Mrs. Felix Warburg, Mrs. Charles E. F. McCann and Columbia Broadcasting System.

Metropolitan Opera was also assured last week of one more season at least. Shrouded in mystery has been the Metropolitan's second tin-cup campaign. The public was solicited but not informed of the needed guarantee. At an expensive opera ball staged to represent the Court at Fontainebleau in the reign of Louis XV, Soprano Lucrezia Bori came out as Mlle Cleophile de L'Opera, curtsied to such royal impersonators as sleek Artist Boutet de Monvel (King Louis) and Mrs. Vincent Astor (Austria's Maria Theresa), dramatically declared that the Metropolitan was saved.

The Boston Symphony conducted no public drive for funds this season but by last week 700 of its regular subscribers had given $102,741, more than enough to make up the deficits for this season and last.

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