While Glyndebourne pursues its summer festival, Carl Ebert, its Artistic Director, looks back on the first nine months of his activities as Intendant of the West-Berlin Städtische Oper—a post he held already once before 1933. Ebert's come-back last September was an occasion of unusual promise. Berliners were expecting nothing less than a marvel from him. But while they gave him unlimited spiritual credit they were much more cautious about any more substantial help. The operatic warfare between the heavily state-fed East-Berlin Staatsoper and the definitely less municipally subsidised West-Berlin Städtische Oper has revealed to the greater public what an awkward position it must be to function as a West-Berlin Intendant who is easily outbought by the greater means of the people beyond the Brandenburger Tor. Nevertheless Ebert, through his rare talent for diplomacy, has emerged triumphantly from this fracas and his position is now stronger than any time before.