Rudolf Bing
| Rudolf Bing | |
|---|---|
| General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera | |
|
In office 1950–1972 |
|
| Preceded by | Edward Patrick Johnson |
| Succeeded by | Göran Gentele |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Rudolf Franz Joseph Bing January 9, 1902 Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Austria) |
| Died | September 2, 1997 (aged 95) Yonkers, New York, United States |
| Cause of death | Respiratory failure |
| Spouse(s) | Nina Schelemskaya-Schlesnaya (m. 1928–1983; her death) Carroll Douglass (m. 1987; annulled) |
| Education | University of Vienna |
| Occupation | Opera impresario |
Sir Rudolf Bing (January 9, 1902 – September 2, 1997) was an Austrian-born opera impresario who worked in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, most notably being General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1950 to 1972. He became a British citizen in 1946 and was knighted in 1971.
Born Rudolf Franz Joseph Bing in Vienna, Austria-Hungary to a well-to-do Jewish family (his father was an industrialist). Bing was an apprentice to a bookseller at the prestigious Viennese shop of Gilhofer & Ranschburg before moving on to Hugo Heller, who also ran a theatrical and concert agency. He then studied music and art history at the University of Vienna. In 1927, he went to Berlin, Germany and subsequently served as general manager of opera houses in that city and in Darmstadt.
While in Berlin he married a Russian ballerina, but in 1934, with the rise of Nazi Germany, the Bings moved to the United Kingdom where in 1946, he became a naturalised British subject. There he helped to found the Glyndebourne Festival Opera and after the war, organised the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland.
In 1949 he moved to the United States, and became General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera the following year, a post he held for 22 years. During the 1960s, he supervised the move of the old Metropolitan on Broadway and 39th Street, to its new quarters in Lincoln Center and presided over one of the most prominent eras of the Met. It was summed up in 1990 by James Oestreich in the New York Times as follows:
Wielding his powerful position at the Metropolitan Opera with intense personal charisma over two decades, Sir Rudolf Bing ruled much of the operatic universe in autocratic fashion, nurturing young artists and cutting superstars down to size with equal enthusiasm. He oversaw the abandonment in 1966 of the stately but somewhat dilapidated old Metropolitan Opera House [which he then had razed] and the construction of a grand monument to his regime, the building the company now occupies, which dominates Lincoln Center. His conservative musical and dramatic bent, preference for Italian opera and concern for theatrical values yielded an identifiable artistic legacy.
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