ABSTRACT
Decades ago Sir Peter Ustinov was called upon to write an introduction to an amusing anthology about calamities that have ocurred in the major opera houses of the West—appropriately entitled Great Operatic Disasters. Ms. Fiedler had no pretensions to writing a serious overview of the history of the Met before her arrival. After all, Irving Kolodin had produced a massive history of the institution, The Metropolitan Opera 1883–1966: A Candid History, of well over seven hundred pages, covering the history of the house before Lincoln Center. The appointment of the first General Administrator of the house, David Webster, 1945-1970, was symptomatic of the way things were to be. Once the manager of the Bon Marche department store in Liverpool and active in local music circles, Webster was drawn to London and told by the powers that be "to organize a national home for opera and ballet."
