In 2006, Mercedes Bass, the glamorous second wife of the billionaire Texas investor Sid Bass, gave New York's Metropolitan Opera $25 million, then the largest individual gift in its 122-year history. In March of this year, Ann Ziff, the glamorous second wife of the late billionaire New York publisher William Ziff Jr., topped that record by giving the Met $30 million. As of next May, Ann Ziff will chair the Met's board, while Mercedes Bass continues as vice-chair and heads the board's $300 million Phase II fund-raising campaign. Ziff is also picking up the multi-million-dollar tab for Robert Lepage's new production of Wagner's 17-hour, four-opera "Ring" cycle, the first of which, Das Rheingold, opened the season in September and runs through April. Both ladies are generous supporters of other cultural institutions: Bass is chairman of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and vice-chairman of Carnegie Hall; Ziff is a vice-chairman of Lincoln Center and is on the Carnegie Hall board, too.

But the Met comes first. "Opera has always been a total passion of mine," gushes Bass, who was born in Iran and educated in England and Switzerland. "I'm happiest sitting at the Met listening to an extraordinary human voice. It's just so fulfilling." Ziff, a native New Yorker whose mother was an opera singer, declares, "Opera is the grandest theater experience, with the greatest singers, orchestra musicians, costumes, stage sets, dancers, chorus—you name it, it's all on the opera stage. And when you are supporting the Met, all of these arts are being supported. I feel strongly that culture is being degraded and lost in our society and that supporting the arts is crucially important." But, as Bass puts it, "Ann and I don't want to be the only ones. We want other people to join us. That's the purpose of big gifts, to inspire others to give as well."