Kup's Chicago - Irv Kupcinet [94]
The Museum of Science and Industry, incidentally, almost occasioned a minor international crisis in 1955. The story is not generally known, but Major Lenox Lohr, the former NBC president who is chairman of the museum, has told it to friends. It seems that while V. M. Molotov, at that time Russian Foreign Minister to the United States, was on a brief stopover in Chicago en route to San Francisco for the tenth-anniversary observance of the founding of the United Nations, he and his party suddenly decided to inspect the submarine U-505, which is displayed behind the museum. They did not notify the museum in advance, nor did they visit the museum itself. They simply hired a limousine, drove out to the old Midway, and stood for quite a while around the submarine, talking excitedly in Russian. This puzzled Lohr, until he remembered that the Allies had agreed to divide the submarines surrendered to them at the end of World War II, and to destroy them all within two years. Molotov, apparently, was getting ready to point an accusing finger at the United States by saying, “I saw with my own eyes the German submarine you were pledged to sink and did not – visible evidence that you do not keep your international agreements.” Lohr, however, was aware that the submarine, which had been captured by a Navy task force under Admiral Dan Gallery in 1944, was not included in this agreement. He immediately alerted the State Department to be prepared for anything Molotov might say. But at San Francisco, Molotov decided to keep silent. On his return trip, he made a formal visit to the museum, but declined an invitation to tour the inside of the sub – and never mentioned that he already had seen it from the outside.
Less publicized, but equally noteworthy are the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, whose collection of ancient Near Eastern art and artifacts includes a forty-ton Assyrian sculpture dating to the eighth century B.C, and the nearby George F. Harding Museum, with one of the most comprehensive collections of knights’ armor outside of Europe.
An indication of Chicago’s prominence in education is the fact that its institutions of higher learning also attract thousands of visitors a year. Of special interest are the University of Chicago, with its Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, the International House (center for eight hundred students from foreign countries), the Oriental Institute, and Argonne National Laboratory in suburban Lemont; and Northwestern University, which has lakefront campuses both in Chicago and suburban Evanston.
Three distinguished halls provide outstanding programs of music and ballet: the new Arie Crown Theater in McCormick Place; Orchestra Hall, home of the nation’s third oldest symphony, led by Fritz Reiner, and concert hall for touring recitalists; and the magnificent Civic Opera House (now the Kemper Insurance Building), tycoon Samuel Insull’s gift to Chicago opera. Each season the Lyric Opera of Chicago performs here and in the few short years since its founding this American company has gained an enviable reputation. By many it is considered second only to the Metropolitan. It is with Lyric that tempestuous diva Maria Callas made her American professional debut – and, backstage, loosed one of her most publicized tantrums over the serving of a court summons.
General Manager Carol Fox, who in private life is the wife of Dr. C. Larkin Flanagan, started Lyric almost literally on a prayer in 1954. She and other young opera enthusiasts signed a cast of prominent singers for a single “Calling Card Performance.” They then set up a desk in the Opera Building offices of the makers of Dr. West’s toothbrushes, so that they could use the building’s address. From that modest beginning grew the company which is a favorite with Renata Tebaldi, Joan Sutherland, Boris Christoff, Tito Gobbi, and other reigning opera stars. It presented Joan Sutherland in Lucia di Lammermoor before she sang the role at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.