Bing, Sir Rudolf Franz Joseph

▪ 1998

      British operatic impresario (b. Jan. 9, 1902, Vienna, Austria—d. Sept. 2, 1997, New York, N.Y.), directed the Metropolitan Opera through one of its most turbulent periods (1950-72). The son of a Viennese industrialist, Bing grew up in a musical household. Although he studied voice in his teens, he soon started working for a bookstore that expanded its business into concert and opera management. He moved to Berlin in 1927 and became assistant manager of the Darmstadt Opera a year later. He followed opera director Carl Ebert first to the Charlottenburg (Berlin) Opera in 1931 and then, as the Nazi era dawned, to Glyndebourne, Eng. During World War II Bing worked in a department store; he later claimed that his experiences soothing hysterical women gave him insight into how to deal with sopranos. After cofounding (1946) the Edinburgh Festival, Bing moved (1949) to New York City. Following a year of observation, he assumed full control of the Metropolitan Opera and revolutionized opera production, in part, by hiring eminent directors from theatre and film, such as Peter Brook, Tyrone Guthrie, and Alfred Lunt. Though Bing became notorious for his quarrels with American soprano Maria Callas and Danish tenor Lauritz Melchior, he engaged such great international stars as Renata Tebaldi, Jussi Björling, and Franco Corelli. In 1955 Bing hired Marian Anderson to sing Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera, the first time that a black singer had appeared at the Met in a major role. Besides contending with the crippling strikes of 1961 and 1969, he supervised the Met's move in 1966 from its theatre on 39th Street to Lincoln Center. One year before he retired, Bing hired James Levine as the company's artistic director. Some critics held that Bing relied too heavily upon Italian Romantic operas. Renowned for his autocratic methods as well as his wit, Bing reportedly remarked, "Don't be misled; beneath that cold, austere, severe exterior, there beats a heart of stone." He was knighted in 1971 and wrote two memoirs, 5,000 Nights at the Opera (1972) and A Knight at the Opera (1981). In later years he suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

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