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Show The Cerberus That Bars American Singers From Their Goal Is Unionism ! By H. Z. TORRES, in Now York Commercial. The Metropolitan Opera company employs an army of stage hands, ef mechanics and house attendants. These men and the orchestra in the pit are unionized, and these are the departments of the opera house which, like an insatiable Moloch, must be fed. Each season the unions increase ' their demands. Each season new regulations hamper production. And each season the opportunity for American artists recedes further. Because, Be-cause, as the union pay roll mounts and the union hours grow shorter, it becomes increasingly necessary to engage artists who have a box-office drawing power. With few conspicuous exceptions, American singers have not an equal box-office drawing power with that of foreign artists. The Cerberus that bars the American singer from his artistic goal is unionism, whose inexorable demands have destroyed elasticity in casting, i have curdled the milk of human kindness and made a mockery of Ameri- i can art. The same condition, in a lesser degree, maintains in the symphony orchestras. With an annual expenditure of $5,000,000, orchestral deficits i last season totaled $1,250,000. With the exception of the Boston Sym phony, the rank and file of symphonic musicians are unionized. Orchestra conductors are paid as much as heads of big industrial organizations, and the musicians under their batons demand all the traffic will bear. |