Читать книгу All in a Life-time онлайн

123 страница из 133

Conried assented. I at once proceeded to carry out my plan to interest the younger social leaders and communicated with Mr. James Hazen Hyde. He was most favourably impressed, and suggested that he and I obligate ourselves for $75,000 each, secure the lease, and then select our associates. We did so, obtained the lease, and then invited the following to make up the Board of Directors of the Conried Metropolitan Opera Company: Alfred G. Vanderbilt, Henry Rogers Winthrop, H. P. Whitney, Robert Goelet, R. H. McCurdy, Jacob H. Schiff, Clarence H. Mackay, George J. Gould, Otto H. Kahn, J. Henry Smith, Eliot Gregory, Bainbridge Colby, and William H. McIntyre. Heinrich Conried was elected president and Hyde and myself vice-presidents. Success was assured from the first. Conried took hold of the management with energy and wonderful resourcefulness that promptly won him the admiration of the directors of both companies.

He completely changed the interior of the Opera House, put in a new ceiling, new chandelier, arranged the proper illumination of the boxes, and the most important improvement of all being the discarding of the old-fashioned drop curtain and replacing it with one divided in the centre, making it unnecessary for the popular stars, when answering repeated curtain-calls, to walk all the way across the stage from one side to the other of the proscenium arch. He unsuccessfully fought the demand of the boxholders for the famous horseshoe to be kept illuminated all through the performance, and finally compromised by putting red shades over the lights.