Sir Rudolf Bing, KBE (January 9, 1902 – September 2, 1997) was an Austrian-born British operaimpresario who worked in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, including as General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1950 to 1972. He was naturalized as a British subject in 1946 and was knighted in 1971, although he spent decades living in the United States, where he died.
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.
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."[2]
Bing is also remembered for his stormy relationship with the era's most famous soprano, Maria Callas. After hiring her for the Met with a debut as Norma on opening night in 1956, he famously canceled her contract in 1958 when they could not come to terms regarding the roles she would sing. Bing invited Callas to return to the Met for two performances of Tosca in 1965, the year that turned out to be her final season in opera.[4]
After leaving the Met, Bing wrote two books of memoirs, 5000 Nights at the Opera (1972) and A Knight at the Opera (1981).[citation needed]
Personal life
While living in Berlin, Bing married the Russian ballerina Nina Schelemskaya-Schlesnaya in 1928. They remained together until her death in 1983. They had no children.[citation needed]
In January 1987, when Bing was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, he married Carroll Douglass, a 45-year-old woman with a history of mental illness, who then took him, in violation of a court order, on a 10-month-long excursion to Florida, then Anguilla, and eventually to Italy and the United Kingdom, where she had sought to buy Rolls-Royce automobiles and a helicopter to give to the Pope, for whom she had a fixation. The couple were found living in a homeless shelter in Leeds, England, before being coaxed to return to New York by Sir Rudolf's lawyers. By 1989, a lawyer for Bing reported that his estate had been reduced during the marriage from $900,000 to less than $200,000, much of it spent on bodyguards hired to keep Douglass from spiriting him out of New York.
For this reason, and owing to Bing's mental impairment, a New York state court in September declared him incompetent to enter into a marriage contract and annulled the union. Douglass was a patient in the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital at the time and received no settlement except $25,000 to cover hospital expenses.[5][6][7][8]
^James R. Oestreich (September 3, 1997). "Rudolf Bing, Titan of the Met, Dies at 95". The New York Times. Retrieved June 22, 2020. Sir Rudolf Bing, who as the dapper and acerbic general manager of the Metropolitan Opera from 1950 to 1972 ushered the company into the modern era and into Lincoln Center, died yesterday at St. Joseph's Hospital in Yonkers. He was 95 and lived at the Hebrew Home for the Aged at Riverdale in The Bronx.
