Article on the corrupt stockholder system at the Academy of Music

“Some Facts and Figures About the Academy of Music and Its Stockholders—Speculation in Art and the Science of Deadheadism.

 

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD:—

Now that a distinguished European songstress is here, and everybody is crying out again, for opera, it seems that the Italian luxury has not where to lay its head in this city. Max Strakosch is not adverse to a presentation of Ambrose Thomas’ operas of “Hamlet” and “Mignon,” with Mlle. Nilsson, but Max Strakosch has had enough experience in our Academy of Music to warrant anything like boldness in an operatic venture in that direction. The truth is, our Academy of Music stands like one of those piles sometimes erected on a dangerous coast—a warning heap—meant to frighten men from the vicinity. It is at this season, however, that we are accustomed to hear the self-sacrificing stockholders, the large hearted directors and a great deal more nonsense about the Academy, so that, once and for all, we shall make our statement of the condition and prospects of affairs here. First, then, there will be no opera this season. Every man in the country who had any money to lose in opera has already lost it at the Academy. Nilsson may be heard in oratorios, but Max Strakosch cannot be induced, even in the interest of art, to present two hundred of our wealthy citizens with a gratuity of several dollars every night that he performs. Nor will there ever be successful opera at that house until the whole plan and system are thoroughly remodelled [sic] in accordance with its charter. At present it is a close corporation of speculators, turning art and the public taste into pennies, and with not the faintest desire to sacrifice anything, not even the regular price of a secured seat, for those great and glorious things that were so highly talked of when the institution was founded.

 

If the public desires to know how much the stockholders of the Academy sacrifice for art let them look over the following figures:—

 

The original cost and value of the 200 shares were $1,000 each, making a fund of…$200,000

After the fire in 1868 an extra assessment was made of $250 for each share for building purposes, making…$50,000

Mortgage upon the building of…$100,000

Floating debt, about…$50,000

There is a sum total of $400,000

The property has increased in value enormously, as everybody knows, so that the possibility of a loss on the original investment is out of the question. The yearly expenses have been about:—Interest on $150,000 debt…$10,500

Taxes and insurances, about…$6,000

Incidentals, about…$1,500

Total…$18,000

 

Now let us see what the income has been up to the present year. There have been, as may be seen by consulting the newspaper files, about fifty regular Italian opera nights a year, which at an average rent of about $200 per night (which has usually been paid) would be…$10,000

There have also been an average of thirty nights of incidental, English, French, and travelling Italian operas, which were taxed at the same rate, making…$6,000

The dramatic performances, concerts, lectures and other exhibitions, about thirty a year…$6,000

The rent paid by the Philharmonic Society…$4,000

Fairs and other shows, about…$3,000

Fifteen regular balls at $1,000 per night…$15,000

There is a grand total of (per year)…$47,000

 

But, as if this was not enough, it will be seen that the disinterested stockholders exact about two dollars a night, each of them, in the shape of seats (which at a low estimate always command that price), and, there being 200 stockholders, we have for the eighty operatic performances an additional levy upon the different managers of $32,000, which, added to the $47,000 already received for rent, makes a grand total of $80,000. Add to this that they take the best front boxes and leave to the paying public inferior ones; also that said boxes are transferrable, and often sold by some of them at a lower price than at the box office, and we can imagine the amount of injury the stockholders have been inflicting on the managers of the Academy of Music.

 

This statement, which will be found exact, is enough to explode the pretensions of our Fourteenth street art patrons. It shows that the Academy of Music, whose charter provided for a free school of music, is speculation, pure and simple, and detriment to public taste, the dread of managers and a fraud upon the general public. The only thing that has been accomplished by the institution is the erection of a splendid deadhead system which, in its working, ahs had the most damaging effect upon all forms of art entertainments that have had the hardihood to brave its portals. The stockholders in the Brooklyn Academy of Music and in Boston have only face admittance, and have to pay if they wish to secure a seat.” The letter is unsigned.