NYC’s Metropolitan Opera, Burning Cash, Collateralizes Chagalls

New York City’s Metropolitan Opera Association had its rating cut by Moody’s Investors Service to three steps above junk and is again turning to works by Marc Chagall for collateral as its cash dwindles.

The nation’s largest performing-arts organization is putting the Chagalls hanging in its lobby -- “The Triumph of Music” and “The Sources of Music” -- up as collateral on a line of credit with Bank of America Corp., Sam Neuman, a spokesman for the opera, said in an e-mail today.