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Metropolitan Opera

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40°46′22″N 73°59′3″W / 40.77278°N 73.98417°W / 40.77278; -73.98417

The Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, seen from Lincoln Center Plaza

The Metropolitan Opera Association of New York City, founded in April 1880, is a major presenter of all types of opera including Grand Opera. The Metropolitan is America's largest classical music organization, and annually presents some 240 opera performances. The home of the company, the Metropolitan Opera House is one of the premier opera stages in the world. The Met, as it is commonly called, is one of the twelve resident organizations at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

History of the Company

A full house at the old Metropolitan Opera House, seen from the rear of the stage, at the Metropolitan Opera House for a concert by pianist Józef Hofmann, November 28, 1937.
Auditorium of the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The Metropolitan Opera Association was founded in 1880 to create an alternative to the Academy of Music. The Academy represented the highest social circle in New York society, and the board of directors were loath to admit members of new wealthy families into their circle. The initial group of subscribers included the Morgan, Roosevelt, Astor and Vanderbilt families. Their creation, The Metropolitan Opera, long outlasted the Academy. Henry Abbey served as manager for the inaugural season 1883-84 which opened with presentation of Faust on October 22, 1883.

Following Abbey's inaugural season, which had resulted in very large deficits, operas were given by a "pick-up" ensemble of relatively inexpensive German singers (which nevertheless included some of the most celebrated singers in Germany) who performed an international repertory, albeit in German.

This anomalous situation terminated at the time of the Great Fire, following which the Golden Age of Opera arrived at the Metropolitan under the celebrated management of Maurice Grau 1892-1903. The greatest (and most highly paid) operatic artists in the world then graced the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House, notably the brothers Jean and Edouard de Reszke, Lilli Lehmann, Lillian Nordica, Nellie Melba, Milka Trnina, Emma Eames, Sofia Scalchi, Eugenia Mantelli, Jean Lassalle, Mario Ancona, Victor Maurel, Antonio Scotti and Pol Plançon.

From 1898 to 1986, the Metropolitan Opera went on a six-week tour following its season in New York. These were cancelled because of financial losses.

Lionel Mapleson (1865-1937), a violinist and librarian of the Metropolitan, made the first recordings of live performances at the Metropolitan. From 1900 to 1904, Lionel Mapleson set up an Edison cylinder machine in the Metropolitan Opera House to record excerpts of performances. These cylinders preserve an early audio glimpse of the Met and are the only known extant recordings of some performers, including Jean de Reszke. The recordings were later issued on a series of LPs and, in 2002, were included in the National Recording Registry.[1] While many of the cylinders became greatly worn over the years, some still retain remarkable sound, particularly of choruses such as the waltz and "Soldier's Chorus" from Faust and the triumphal scene from Act 2 of Aida. Mapleson placed his machine in various locations, including the prompter's box, the side of the stage, and in the "flies," which enabled him to record the soloists, chorus, and orchestra, as well as the audience's applause. Many of the original cylinders are preserved in the Rodgers & Hammestein Archives of Recorded Sound at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.[2]

The administration of Heinrich Conried in 1903-1908, which saw the arrival of Enrico Caruso, unquestionably the most celebrated singer who ever appeared at the Old Metropolitan, was followed by the 25-year reign, 1908-1935 of the magisterial Giulio Gatti-Casazza, whose model planning, authoritative organizational skills and brilliant casts raised the level of Metropolitan opera to a prolonged and unforgettable Silver Age. Again, the greatest singers and conductors appeared at the Met. At one point, both Arturo Toscanini and Gustav Mahler were regular conductors at the Met.

The noted Canadian operatic tenor, Edward Johnson, was general manager between 1935 and 1950, successfully guiding the company through the dark years of the Depression and World War II. Zinka Milanov, Jussi Björling, Richard Tucker and Robert Merrill were first heard at the Met under his management. Sir Thomas Beecham, George Szell and Bruno Walter were among the great conductors of the Johnson era.

An aristocratic Austrian-turned-Englishman, Sir Rudolf Bing, was manager between 1950 and 1972 . Bing modernized the administration of the Company, ended an archaic ticket sales system, and ended the Company's weekly one-night stands in Philadelphia. He presided over an era of great singing and glittering new productions, and guided the company's move to a new home in Lincoln Center. Among the many great artists Sir Rudolf introduced to New York audiences were Maria Callas, Birgit Nilsson, Renata Tebaldi, Dame Joan Sutherland, Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Victoria de los Ángeles, Montserrat Caballé, Mario del Monaco, Franco Corelli, Carlo Bergonzi, Nicolai Gedda, Jon Vickers, Giorgio Tozzi and Cesare Siepi. Critics of Bing complained of a lack of great conducting during his regime, but he did offer such fine conductors as Fritz Stiedry, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Pierre Monteux, Erich Leinsdorf, Fritz Reiner, Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan.

Among the achievements of Bing's tenure was the integration of the Met's artistic roster. Marian Anderson's historic 1955 debut was followed by the introduction of a whole generation of fine African-American artists led by Leontyne Price (who inaugurated the new house in Lincoln Center), Grace Bumbry, George Shirley, and many others.

Following Bing's retirement in 1972, the Met's management was overseen by a succession of executives including Schuyler Chapin, Anthony Bliss, Bruce Crawford and Hugh Southern. All of these men led the Met in partnership with Music Director James Levine, the Met's guiding artistic force through the last third of the 20th century.

After a 16-year tenure, General Manager Joseph Volpe retired on 31 July 2006.

The current General Manager is Peter Gelb. Gelb began outlining his plans for the future in April 2006. These plans include more productions each year, ideas for shaving staging costs and attracting new audiences without deterring existing opera-lovers, whose average age, at the Met, is over 60. Gelb sees these issues as crucial for an organization which, to a far greater extent than any of the other great opera theatres of the world, is dependent on private financing.

Gelb is being watched to see if his enthusiasm at Sony Classical, where he previously worked, for "cross-over" productions (e.g. Yo-Yo Ma playing country music) might spill over into the Met's schedules. He calls himself "an old-style producer," but saw little future for purely classical recording when working in the classical-record business, an attitude that caused some anger.

The Met on radio and movie theatre screens

Met radio broadcasts

The Met is also known worldwide for its live radio broadcasts. The broadcast season typically begins every year during the first week of December and presents twenty live Saturday matinee performances through May. The first broadcast was heard on December 25, 1931, a production of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel. Those initial broadcasts were, however, only partial broadcasts, when only selected acts were transmitted. Full length opera broadcasts started from March 11, 1933, with transmission of Tristan und Isolde. The broadcasts were originally heard on NBC Radio's Blue Network and continued on the Blue Network's successor, ABC, into the 1960s. As network radio waned, the Met founded its own Metropolitan Opera Radio Network which is now heard on radio stations around the world.

With the arrival of 1973/74 broadcasting season, the Met started to transmit signals from those live matinee performances in FM stereo system.

Sponsorship of the Saturday afternoon broadcasts by Texaco began on December 7, 1940 with Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Texaco's support continued for 63 years, the longest continuous sponsorship in broadcast history. After its merger with Chevron, however, the combined company ChevronTexaco ended its sponsorship in April 2004. Emergency grants allowed the broadcasts to continue through 2005 when the residential home building company Toll Brothers stepped in to become primary sponsor.

In the seven decades of its Saturday broadcasts, the Met has been introduced by the voices of only three permanent announcers. The legendary Milton Cross served from the inaugural broadcast until his death in 1975. He was succeeded by Peter Allen, who presided for 29 years through the 2003-2004 season. The present host of the broadcasts, Margaret Juntwait, began her tenure the following season and now also presents all of the live and recorded broadcasts on the Met's Sirius satellite radio channel. In addition, announcer Lloyd Moss twice substituted for Cross. Deems Taylor was heard briefly as co-host during the early years.

The live broadcasts have been carried in Canada since December 1933 first on the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission[3] and, since 1934, on its successor, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation where they are currently heard on CBC Radio 2.

Met on satellite radio

Metropolitan Opera Radio, a 24/7 opera channel carrying four evenings each week of live broadcasts from the current season plus archived broadcasts from past seasons during other hours, was created in September 2006 when the Met started a multi-year relationship with Sirius Satellite Radio.[4] Margaret Juntwait was named the official announcer of Metropolitan Opera Radio.[5]

Met broadcasts to movie theaters

Beginning with the 30 December 2006 Saturday matinee live performance of the 110-minute version of Julie Taymor's production of The Magic Flute, the Met (along with NCM Fathom)[6][7] launched Metropolitan Opera's "Live in HD" series, a series of six productions from the 2006-07 season in 100 movie theaters across the USA, Canada, Japan, and several European countries, including Britain, Norway, Sweden and Denmark which are equipped to present high definition satellite video downloads on the big screen.[8] According to the Met's press release[9] 48 out of 60 US theaters had sold out prior to the broadcast, including venues in Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Miami and Washington, D.C., while all seven of the UK participating theatres (City Screen) had also sold out. These movie transmissions have received wide and generally favorable press coverage.[10]

The series continued throughout the 2006-07 season with live HD transmissions of I Puritani, The First Emperor, Eugene Onegin, The Barber of Seville, and Il Trittico. In addition, limited repeat showings of the operas were offered in most of the presenting cities. Digital sound for the performances was provided by Sirius Satellite Radio.

The Met reports that 91% of all available seats were sold for the HD performances.[11] According to General Manager Peter Gelb, there were 60,000 people in cinemas around the world watching the March 24 transmission of The Barber of Seville.[12]. For the 2006/7 season, it is reported that 324,000 tickets were sold worldwide, while each simulcast cost $850,000 to $1 million to produce.[13]

For the 2007-08 season, the Met has announced that eight of its season's productions will be presented as Metropolitan Opera's "Live in HD" series beginning December 15, 2007 with Roméo et Juliette and ending with La fille du régiment on April 26, 2008.[14]. In addition, Gelb has noted that "he expects the number of people who attend live Met performances in movie houses next season to match the cumulative audience for all 225 performances in the Met auditorium: about 800,000 people".[13] Coverage to double the number of theaters in the US, as well as to additional countries such as France, Germany, Italy, and Spain is planned for 2007/08.

The number of participating venues in the US, which includes movie theatre chains as well as independent theatres and some college campus venues, is 343.[13][15] while "the scope of the series expands to include more than 700 locations across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.... The Met has said that it hopes to reach as many as one million audience members with this season's HD transmissions"[16]

Opera Houses

The Metropolitan Opera in 1905, looking uptown

The "Old Met"

The first Metropolitan Opera House opened on October 22, 1883, with a performance of Faust. It was located on 1411 Broadway, occupying the whole block between West 39th Street and West 40th Street on the west side of the street (40°45′15″N 73°59′15″W / 40.75417°N 73.98750°W / 40.75417; -73.98750) in the Garment District of Midtown. The original Metropolitan Opera House, nicknamed "The Yellow Brick Brewery", was designed by J. Cleaveland Cady and was gutted by fire on August 27, 1892. Following the fire the season 1892-93 was cancelled and the building was renovated extensively for the season after.

In 1903 the interior of the opera house was extensively redesigned by the architects Carrère and Hastings. The familiar golden auditorium with its sunburst chandelier, and curved proscenium inscribed with the names of six composers (Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Gounod and Verdi), dates from this time. The first of the Met's signature gold stage curtains was installed in 1906, completing the look that the "old" Met Opera House maintained until its closing.

In 1940 ownership of the opera house shifted from the wealthy families who occupied the theatre's boxes to the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association. At this time the last major change to the auditorium's interior was completed. The second tier of privately held boxes (the "grand tier") was converted into standard row seating. This enlarged the seating capacity and left only the first tier of boxes from the "golden horseshoe" of the opera house's origins as a showplace for New York society.

As early as the turn of the century, the backstage facilities were deemed to be severely inadequate for the growing company. Various plans were put forward over the years to build a new home for the company. Detailed designs for a new opera house were created by architects such as Joseph Urban. The proposed new locations included Columbus Circle and what is now Rockefeller Center, but none of these plans came to fruition. Only in 1966 did the opera company move to a new house at its present location in Lincoln Center. The original building, having failed to obtain landmark status, was razed in 1967.

The Met at Lincoln Center

The present Metropolitan Opera House, with approximately 3,800 seats, is located at Lincoln Center at Lincoln Square in the Upper West Side and was designed by architect Wallace K. Harrison. Although west-east roads do not run through Lincoln Center itself, the Metropolitan Opera House is parallel to the block from West 63rd Street to West 64th Street. The rear of the House meets Amsterdam Avenue and the entrance to the Opera House is at Lincoln Center Plaza which begins at Columbus Avenue. The building is clad in white travertine and the east facade is graced with five similar arches. On display in the lobby are two murals created for the space by Marc Chagall. The gold proscenium is 54' wide and 54' high. The main curtain is custom-woven gold damask and is the largest tab curtain in the world.

The "New Met" opened on September 16, 1966, with the world premiere of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra.

The Metropolitan Opera performs grand opera in rotating repertory, each week presenting seven performances of 4 to 5 different productions. The highly mechanized stage and support space facilitates this presentation. There are 7 full stage elevators, (60' wide, with double decks) and three slipstages, the upstage one containing a 60' diameter revolve (turntable). There are 103 motorized battens (linesets) for overhead lifting and there are two 100' tall fully-enveloping cycloramas.

Installed in 1995 at a cost of $2 million, an electronic libretto system , provides the audience with a translation of the opera’s text in English on individual screens mounted in front of each seat. Known as "Met Titles", this system was the first in the world to be placed in an opera house with "each screen (having) a switch to turn it off, a filter to prevent the dim, yellow dot-matrix characters from disturbing nearby viewers and the option to display texts in multiple languages for newer productions (currently Spanish and German). Custom-designed, the system features rails of different heights for various sections of the house, individually designed displays for some box seats and commissioned translations costing up to $10,000 apiece."[17] Due to the height of and artwork on the proscenium, it was not feasible to have titles displayed above the stage, such as is found in many opera houses. The idea of above-stage titles was also vehemently opposed by James Levine, the Met's music director.

While the Met Opera Company is on hiatus, the Metropolitan Opera House is home to the annual Spring season of American Ballet Theatre. It is also regularly the location for touring opera and ballet companies including the Kirov, Bolshoi, and La Scala. In addition, the Met has presented recitals by Vladimir Horowitz, Kathleen Battle and others. Philip Glass's "Einstein on the Beach" was staged independently at the Met in 1976. Television programs produced at the opera house have included the CBS special "Sills and Burnett at the Met" in 1976 and the MTV Video Music Awards in 1999 and 2001.

Principal Conductors

Although no conductor was officially titled "Music Director" until Rafael Kubelik, a number of conductors had ongoing influence on the quality and performance style of the orchestra throughout the Met's history. The Met has also had a great many celebrated guest conductors who are not listed here.

Deaths at the Met

On March 4, 1960, Leonard Warren died of a stroke onstage after completing the aria "Urna fatale" in act two of Verdi's La Forza del Destino.[18]

On April 30, 1977, Betty Stone, a member of the Met chorus, was killed in an accident offstage during a tour performance of Il Trovatore in Cleveland.[19]

On July 23, 1980, Helen Hagnes Mintiks, a Canadian-born violinist, was found dead at the bottom of an air shaft at the Met, murdered by a stagehand, Craig Crimmins, during a performance of the Berlin Ballet.[20][21] The case was chronicled in the book Murder at the Met by David Black.

On January 5, 1996, tenor Richard Versalle died while playing the clerk Vitek in Leoš Janáček's The Makropulos Case. Versalle was climbing a 20-foot ladder in the opening scene when he suffered a heart attack and fell to the stage.[22]

In addition, several audience members have died at the Met. The most well-known incident was the suicide of operagoer Bantcho Bantchevsky on January 23, 1988 during an intermission of Verdi's Macbeth.[23]

References

  1. ^ loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/nrpb-2002reg.html
  2. ^ mapleson.com
  3. ^ Phonothèque québécoise, accessed January 21, 2008
  4. ^ Peter Conrad, "Lessons from America". New Statesman, 22 January 2007.
  5. ^ Sirius Radio's announcement of new relationship with the MET
  6. ^ About NCM digital programming
  7. ^ List of Met productions presented on HD in 2007
  8. ^ Campbell Robertson, "Mozart, Now Singing at a Theatre Near You", New York Times, 1 January 2007
  9. ^ Met press release on plans and advance ticket sales for The Magic Flute, 30 December 2006
  10. ^ Elizabeth Fitzsimmons, "Movie theaters offer opera live from the Met". San Diego Union-Tribune, 31 December 2006.
  11. ^ Richard Ouzounian, "Opera Screen Dream: Met simulcasts heat up plexes in cities, stix", Variety, March 5-11, 2007, pp 41/42
  12. ^ Gelb, speaking during the intermission on 24 March 2007, noted that over 250 movie theatres were presenting the performance that day
  13. ^ a b c Daniel Watkin, "Met Opera To Expand Simulcasts In Theaters", The New York Times, May 17, 2007
  14. ^ The Met Opera’s 2007-08 Season to Feature Seven New Productions – the Most in More than 40 Years
  15. ^ "Participating Theatres - Met Opera Live in HD Series - LIVE PERFORMANCES", announced October 2nd 2007
  16. ^ Adam Wasserman, "Changing Definitions", Opera News, December 2007, p.60
  17. ^ Edward Rothstein, "Met Titles: A Ping-Pong Of the Mind", New York Times, 9 April 1995
  18. ^ "Leonard Warren Collapses And Dies on Stage at 'Met'," New York Times, March 5, 1960
  19. ^ "Met Singer Killed in Backstage Elevator in Cleveland," New York Times, May 2, 1977
  20. ^ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920910,00.html
  21. ^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_v36/ai_3574211
  22. ^ "Richard Versalle, 63, Met Tenor, Dies After Fall in a Performance," New York Times, January 7, 1996
  23. ^ "METRO DATELINES; Man's Death at Opera Is Called a Suicide", The New York Times, 25 January 1988 retrieved December 1, 2006

Bibliography

  • Meyer, Martin The Met: One Hundred Years of Grand Opera, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983. ISBN 0-671-47087-6
  • Robinson, Francis, Celebration: The Metropolitan Opera, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1979. ISBN 0-385-12975-0
  • Wasserman, Adam, "Sirius Business", Opera News, December 2006

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Metropolitan Opera.
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