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Show BROADWAY AND MAIN STREET Bing Bewitched, Bothered OverHeetingHei Problems By BILLY ROSE A Mew York paper recently carried the following dispatch from Paris: Rudolf Bing, new general manager of the Metropolitan Opera House said today that he had come to Europe on the biggest talent search in oi eratic history. Asked about the offer last year of Billy Rose, Broadway producer and columnist, to take over the Met and make it pay, Mr. Bing asked-"Who's asked-"Who's he?" : ! "Who's he?" When reminded of Rose's identity, identi-ty, the impresario laughed and added: "The problems of the Met will case this country for talent before be-fore taking bis eyes and eardrums ear-drums to the Continent. After all, when a gent with threadbare thread-bare spats is imported to boss our No. 1 opera house and handed hand-ed plenty of steak and salary for so doing, it would seem the part of good public relations for him to first give the home talent a careful look-listen. never be solved by Broadway methods." meth-ods." Judging from the above, it's evident that Mr. Bing has a sense of humor and, as Groucho Marx once said, if there's anything I like in a man or an fp'iu 11 1 '".i'""a ACTUALLY, UNLESS he suffers from a slapsy - lapsey "memory, Brother Bing was only kidding when he said, "Who dat?" The fact is that he's made two tries in recent years to strike up a nodding nod-ding acquaintance with me both of which left me nodding. Once in London and once in New York, he did his darnedest to fast-talk me into backing some party venture he was fronting for, and each time I shooed him off with the polite explanation ex-planation that my policy was, "Neither a borrower nor a sucker be." There is, of course, an outside chance that this joker no longer remembers trying to put the bite on me in which event we're even because I didn't know who he was when the Met announced an-nounced his appointment. For a long time, I thought the Bing in question was Herman Bing, the baggy-pantsed Dutch comedian who else would hire Flagstadt and fire Melchior? Who else would substitute the grunt-and-groan German Ger-man operas for the melodic Italian ones? The final jest Is rollicking Rudy's Ru-dy's statement that "the problems of the Met will never be solved by Broadway methods." Mebbe so, but it seems to me that this carpy contention doesn't quite jibe with his much publicized efforts to sign Garson Kanin, Margaret Webster, Danny Kaye and Oscar Hammer-stein Hammer-stein II. If any of these Times Square tots ever set foot or aden-noids aden-noids in La Scala. then I'm a monkey's uncle and Mr. Bing is an opera impresario. It may very well be that the larynxes in Filadelfia. Germany, are superior to those in Philadell phia, Pennsylvania, but you can't prove it by Marian Anderson. Next we come to Rudy's sidesplitting side-splitting "Who dat?" when asked about me. When you come right down to it, there's no reason why Mr. B. should ever have heard hiss or hosannah of an American prefer pre-fer of a century in the entertainment entertain-ment business. After all, it wasn't until recently that this Dapper Danubian had either time or incentive to keep up with theatrical news. According to the record, he has spent a good 1 deal of his adult life as amanuen- sis and assistant to various assistants, assis-tants, but nowhere do I find any mention of his having produced so much as a necktie-although, come to think of it, he did sell a few of them when he clerked in a London haberdashery during the war. opera director it s a sense of humor. Billy Rose But on the o f f-chance f-chance that some folks may have missed the hilarious overtones of Rudy's remarks, perhaps I ought to translate them and let everybody every-body in on the joke. FIRST OFF, our Viennese friend wants us to know that he's in Europe on what he modestly calls "the biggest talent search in operatic op-eratic history." An admirable undertaking, un-dertaking, but seeing as bow the Herr Direktor recently put Kirsten Flagstadt on the Met payroll, the natural question is whether the talent he's looking for is in the tonsil or treason department. A second question, equally natural, is why Mr. Bing doesn't |