"Die Zeit, die ist ein sonderbar' Ding"

In keeping (tangentially) with our Rosenkavalier theme this weekend, here is a tale that is, as it were, as old as time, and just about as unreliable. After the jump, La Cieca produces documentary evidence that Peter Gelb has single-handedly ravaged the finances of the Met not only during his own incumbency, but in the distant past as well.

Here we see Gelb’s influence, when, at the callow age of only 22, he precipitated a financial crisis at the Met in the year 1975.

And even more incredibly, here we have proof of Gelb’s malign influence a whopping 13 years before his birth, when the Met ran out of money during its 1940 season.