Charred Opera Archive Is Called a Cultural Loss : Burbank: Most items in the Ledler Foundation’s collection were not one of a kind, but many were historically interesting.

The destruction of a vast collection of opera memorabilia in a Burbank fire apparently was not as great in money terms as was first feared, but could represent a significant cultural loss, scholars and dealers said Monday.

Most of the documents and photographs in the collection housed in the Ledler building were not one of a kind, dealers said.

“From what I have heard about it, it is a very minor collection at best. I think this thing has been blown way, way out of proportion,” said Charles Sachs, owner of the Scriptorium in Beverly Hills, a prominent rare music manuscripts dealership.

“I had never even heard of it before the fire, and I have been in this business for 25 years.”

But local scholars said that even if the collection would not have fetched a high price at auction, it probably would have been a valuable resource, if only they had seen it.

“There was talk about the collection, which had some marvelous things in it,” said Robert Winter, a UCLA professor of music. “But I guess that not many had access to it.”

Music librarians at UCLA, USC and the Music Center said they had never laid eyes on the collection, which Ledler Foundation officials said contained rare letters signed by famous composers, first editions of opera scores, signed photographs of composers and prominent singers, New York Metropolitan Opera programs dating to 1884, a large repository of leather-bound 19th-Century scores and at least one document fragment handwritten by Beethoven.

The material belonged to the foundation, housed with the Ledler Corp. in a building that burned Friday night. Burbank fire officials said they suspect arson.

The worth of the contents of the building was estimated by fire officials at $4.5 million. No estimate was given specifically for the music collection.

The collection had been amassed by Lawrence Deutsch, who with his partner, Lloyd E. Rigler, made a fortune by introducing and marketing Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer, beginning in 1949. They founded the Ledler Corp. and, in 1955, the Ledler Foundation.

Deutsch died in 1977. The only inventory of his memorabilia was in a vault in the building when it burned and still might be recovered, Ledler executives said.

James Rigler, nephew of the co-founder of the foundation, said the collection had been kept mostly private but that there were plans at the time of the fire to make it more accessible to scholars.

“There was a work sheet that was in the hand of Beethoven,” said Rigler, who works for the foundation reviewing grant proposals. “I don’t know what it was, what piece of music he was working on, but it had his signature.”

A private collector, William Crawford of New York, said in an interview that Rigler had shown him the Beethoven page last year but that he did not recall whether it was signed.

Sara Willen, a Beverly Hills manuscript dealer and president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Manuscript Society, said that if the work is authentic, its monetary value would depend on which piece it was from.

“If it was just sketches on a folk melody, it might be worth about $40,000 to $60,000,” she said. “If it’s from the ‘Emperor’ Concerto, then it would be double that.”

The Beethoven would have fetched a good price because it was unique. Copies of most of the printed works in the collection probably exist elsewhere, collectors said, and letters of even famous composers do not bring in high fees. Most of the items in the collection, they said, would be worth less than $100 to a few thousand dollars apiece.

“In this business,” Willen said, “that’s parking-meter change.”

Tim Rhodes, operations manager of the Ledler Corp., said he could not place a value on the collection or the loss. Items that were not one of a kind will be covered by insurance, he said. But the value of lost items that were unique is not needed. The foundation’s insurance did not cover them, he said.

Artistic worth is another matter. “I was told they had a complete, first edition of the piano-vocal score of Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute,’ ” Winter said. ‘That is a tremendous loss.

“There are certainly other first editions of it existing, but in those days, they sometimes made changes in a score without changing the edition. So that particular copy might have been the only one of that version.

“And who knows just what was in those letters?”

The Metropolitan Opera in New York has its own copies of its opera programs, according to its director of archives, Bob Tuggle, except for the entire 1910-11 season. “That was the season Puccini’s ‘Girl of the Golden West’ and Humperdinck’s ‘Konigskinder’ had their premieres,” Tuggle said.

“I don’t know if there are any other copies of those in the world.”

Scholars and collectors complained that the works were not better protected, or at least copied.

“Why were those letters and those photographs not in a fireproof cabinet?” said James Camner, a prominent opera memorabilia dealer in Princeton, N. J. “Why were copies not made?

“Looking back, we just can’t imagine it. But this has happened in the past. And it will certainly happen again.”