Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1910 — FRENCH SUBSIDIZED THEATERS. [ARTICLE]

FRENCH SUBSIDIZED THEATERS.

Itls Contended ’That State-Aided Playhouses Are Handicapped. Toward the end of every year the question of state subventioned theaters crops up. The occasion is the laying before the French parliament of the report, invariably drawn up by a gentleman who knows nothing whatever of the drama, upon the condition of the four playhouses, the Opera the Comedie Francalse, the Opera Comlque and the Odeon, to the running expenses of which the treasury contributes varrious amounts —$160,000 a year to the Opera and $60,000 to the Opera Comique, for instance. Every year the old argument between state aided art and independent art is revived, and the old question of free trade drama or bounty fed drama comes up once more for discussion. This time two members of parliament have made an exceptionally bold onslaught upon state subventions by moving that those paid to the Opera and the Opera Comlque should be reduced to SBO,OOO and $20,000, respectively, the London Daily Telegraph says. The reason given is that both theaters are increasing their prices 10 per cent by charging the public the tax in aid of public charities, formerly included in the cost of each ticket, over and above the latter. The result of the motion, hQWever, is to open up a discussion on the wider issue for and against state subvention of the drama, and this from two points of view, that of the managers’ interests and that of the interests of the drama. Even from the mere business standpoint some oppose state aids. In return for its bounties the state imposes many obligations, such as either half rate or completely free performances so many times a year. Unofficial, but, it seems, equally unavoidable, charges upon state subventioned theaters also exist. In one case the free tickets distributed among members of parliament, government officials, their cousins and aunts, amount to SIB,OOO worth of “paper” annually. In these circumstances, free traders in the drama are confident that theaters lose more than they gain by subventions, and one of them goes so far as to say that if the Opera, in exchange for relinquishing its $160,000 a year from the state, were free to charge what prices it liked, and to bring out only as many new works (which rarely pay) as it chose, Paris “might hear, for Instance, Caruso and Mme. Emma Calve together,” the former being never and the latter now rarely heard here, and Paris “in autumn and spring would have such a season as that of London and New York, and would regain the place in the world which she deserves.”