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Metropolitan Opera
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===Edward Johnson=== In April 1935, Gatti stepped down after 27 years as general manager. His immediate successor, the former Met bass [[Herbert Witherspoon]], died of a heart attack barely six weeks into his term of office.<ref name=HWCT>{{cite news|title=Witherspoon, Opera Leader, Dies in Office|url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1935/05/11/page/1/article/witherspoon-opera-leader-dies-in-office|newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]]|date=May 11, 1935|access-date=January 7, 2020|archive-date=March 7, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307124523/http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1935/05/11/page/1/article/witherspoon-opera-leader-dies-in-office/|url-status=live}}{{subscription required}}</ref><ref name=HWNYT>{{cite news|title=Witherspoon Dies in Office at Opera on Eve of Sailing. New Manager of Metropolitan Is Victim of Sudden Heart Attack After Day's Work|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B0CE2DA1139E33ABC4952DFB366838E629EDE|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=May 11, 1935|access-date=August 12, 2015|archive-date=April 21, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160421204213/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B0CE2DA1139E33ABC4952DFB366838E629EDE|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=HWT>{{cite magazine|title=Death in the Met|date=May 20, 1935|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|access-date=January 7, 2020|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,754812,00.html|archive-date=May 22, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200522152949/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,754812,00.html|url-status=live}}</ref> This opened the way for the Canadian tenor and former Met artist [[Edward Johnson (tenor)|Edward Johnson]] to be appointed general manager. Johnson served the company for the next 15 years, guiding the Met through the remaining years of the depression and the [[World War II]] era. The producing company's financial difficulties continued in the years immediately following the desperate season of 1933–34. To meet budget shortfalls, fundraising continued and the number of performances was curtailed. Still, on given nights the brilliant Wagner pairing of the Norwegian soprano [[Kirsten Flagstad]] with the great [[heldentenor]] [[Lauritz Melchior]] proved irresistible to audiences even in such troubled times. To expand the Met's support among its national radio audience, the Met board's [[Eleanor Robson Belmont]], the former actress and wife to industrialist [[August Belmont]], was appointed head of a new organization—the Metropolitan Opera Guild—as successor to a women's club Belmont had set up. The Guild supported the producing company through subscriptions to its magazine, [[Opera News]], and through Mrs. Belmont's weekly appeals on the Met's radio broadcasts.<ref name="molto"/> In 1940 ownership of the performing company and the opera house was transferred to the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association from the company's original partnership of New York society families. [[Zinka Milanov]], [[Jussi Björling]], and [[Alexander Kipnis]] were first heard at the Met under Johnson's management. During World War II when many European artists were unavailable, the Met recruited American singers as never before. [[Eleanor Steber]], [[Dorothy Kirsten]], [[Helen Traubel]] (Flagstad's successor as Wagner's heroines), [[Jan Peerce]], [[Richard Tucker (tenor)|Richard Tucker]], [[Leonard Warren]] and [[Robert Merrill]] were among the many home grown artists to become stars at the Met in the 1940s. [[Ettore Panizza]], Sir [[Thomas Beecham]], [[George Szell]] and [[Bruno Walter]] were among the leading conductors engaged during Johnson's tenure. [[Kurt Adler]] began his long tenure as chorus master and staff conductor in 1943.
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