Music: Met's Metamorphosis

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Guild. Operagoers were amazed last year at the teamwork and smoothness of Manager Johnson's first season. Gossips were equally amazed at the support young matrons and businessmen were giving him. Hundreds, by asking attendants the way to the bar and washrooms, revealed that this was their first visit to the Opera House. For this new contingent, lively, white-haired Mrs. August Belmont was chiefly responsible. As Actress Eleanor Robson at the old Empire Theatre she used to hurry across the street from her performances and buy standing room at the Opera House. All her life she has kept her interest in the Metropolitan, three years ago became the first woman on its board. When Johnson stepped into the managership she rallied behind him with a little knot of socialite backers, founded the Metropolitan Opera Guild, and was made its chairman. Key to her salesmanship was the ticket coupon book, available in any amount to Guild members only, the coupons redeemable at the Metropolitan box-office or at Guild headquarters against their value in tickets. Not restricted to a particular day of the week nor to a particular section of the Opera House, the coupons, coupled with the Guild's telephone reservation service, became the first painless system of obtaining opera tickets for those who could not afford to be season subscribers. In return for the $10 membership premium Mrs. Belmont offered, besides Guild service, a seat to a dress rehearsal, admission to an "at home" party. By the end of the year she was able to turn over $50,000 to the Opera box office. Last week she boasted that her Guild now numbers 2,400.

Energetic Mrs. Belmont had extended her plans this year with chairmen in 65 communities of three states, with the weekly Opera news Bulletin to members, with Metropolitan Operagrams, a 48-page book listing the plots, biographical notes, bibliography and available phonograph records on the operas and composers of the 1936-37 repertory. Hoping for a large Christmas-present sale of coupon books, she expects the Guild to sponsor a performance of Aïda for children next March.

Eduardo di Giovanni. Guelph, Ontario, was first to discover Edward Johnson's musical leanings when, at 5, he piped Throw Out the Life Line in a Sunday-school concert. When he was studying law at the University of Western Ontario, he skipped out before the spring examinations, got a job soloing in Manhattan's Brick Presbyterian Church, later earned $700 a week singing Lieut. Niki in Oscar Straus's A Waltz Dream. Money saved therefrom took him to Italy where he studied under Caruso's old teacher Vincenzo Lombardi. Cynical old Lombardi said he would make better progress with an Italian name. Translated into Eduardo di Giovanni, he cut a wide singing swath through Europe, kept the name until he returned to the U. S. in 1919 to sing with the Chicago Opera.

Three years later he signed up with the Metropolitan, sang there for 13 years. During that time he endeared himself to audiences by the taste and intelligence of his singing, to the Opera personnel by his backstage amiability. The latter came in handy when he was made manager.