Preservation of American Hellenic History
Preservation of American Hellenic History
by Jason C. Mavrovitis
In 1917, sometime during his second year in the United States, on a snowy winter Saturday, Jimmy walked past New York's "old" Metropolitan Opera House at Thirty-ninth Street and Broadway. Curious about the show, and not having anything else to do, he purchased a standing room ticket. Inside he found a new world: one of music, drama, song and dance. It captivated him. He became a regular patron in the standing room section and attended the opera frequently during each season until his marriage ten years later.
Jimmy saved playbills of many opera performances. In the Metropolitan Opera's 1924-1925 Season he attended performances of:(2)
An appreciation of books and history grew out of his exposure to the Times, the Forty-second Street Library and the Metropolitan Opera.
His personal library contained the works of Tolstoy, Dumas, De Maupassant, Shakespeare and others. He treasured his set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and revered education and knowledge. Jimmy was a romantic. He found great pleasure in literature and poetry, and tried to write a bit himself.
In time, his attendance at the opera was limited by life events, but he heard Metropolitan Opera performances on the Texaco Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts on Saturday afternoons, enjoyed his collection of recordings, and listened to live radio broadcasts of operetta on the Chicago Theater of the Air.
Jimmy also discovered the Metropolitan Museum of Art which he visited frequently. He was especially attracted to the representational art of the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. He held the arts as man's crowning achievement and celebrated creative ability.
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