Bing was an apprentice to a bookseller at the prestigious Viennese shop of Gilhofer & Ranschburg before moving on to Hugo Heller, who also ran a theatrical and concert agency.
It was summed up in 1990 by James Oestreich in The New York Times as follows: "Wielding his powerful position at the Metropolitan Opera with intense personal charisma over two decades, Sir Rudolf Bing ruled much of the operatic universe in autocratic fashion, nurturing young artists and cutting superstars down to size with equal enthusiasm.
He oversaw the abandonment in 1966 of the stately but somewhat dilapidated old Metropolitan Opera House [which he then had razed] and the construction of a grand monument to his regime, the building the company now occupies, which dominates Lincoln Center.
His conservative musical and dramatic bent, preference for Italian opera and concern for theatrical values yielded an identifiable artistic legacy.
[citation needed] In January 1987, when Bing was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, he married Carroll Douglass, a 45-year-old woman with a history of mental illness, who then took him, in violation of a court order, on a 10-month-long excursion to Florida, then Anguilla, and eventually to Italy and the United Kingdom, where she had sought to buy Rolls-Royce automobiles and a helicopter to give to the Pope, for whom she had a fixation.
For this reason, and owing to Bing's mental impairment, a New York state court in September declared him incompetent to enter into a marriage contract and annulled the union.
[5][6][7][8] In May 1989, Roberta Peters and Teresa Stratas arranged for Bing to be admitted to the Hebrew Home for the Aged in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, New York, where he resided until his death.
In New Year Honours List of 1956, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Bing a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for "services to music.