Metropolitan Opera

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Coordinates: 40°46′22″N, 73°59′3″W

The Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, seen from Lincoln Center Plaza
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, either as new productions (sometimes productions borrowed from or shared with) other major opera houses in America and abroad. The home of the company, the Metropolitan Opera House is one of the premier opera stages in the world, considered by some as one of the best and is among the biggest in the world. The Met, as it is commonly called, is one of the twelve resident organizations at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

During each new season (starting in September and ending in May the next year) the Met hosts the best singers from around the world, many famous of them either started their career here or were engaged here sooner or later and the Met was essential a cornerstone of their world fame. Some of operas were commissioned by the Met to have their world premiere here, many of them in the presence of the composer.

The institution is world-wide famous from the greatly apprised and artistically standing on high grounds top performances.

Each season, starting since end of 1931, the Met gives regular live broadcast on radio of most of new and revived productions each season once per week during its Saturday matinee performances (some of them were even televised starting from 1977). Starting from 2006-2007 season those broadcasts are expanded to four per week and are available on Sirius Satellite Radio plus archival collections reaching vast accumulated library of many a previous historical broadcasts. And starting from December 2006, the Met presents some of performances in simulcast in High Definition to movie theatres in America and around the world.

Contents

[edit] 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.
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.
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. A prominent lawyer Paul Cravath became Chairman of the Met. in 1931.[3]

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.

[edit] The Met on radio, TV and in movie theatres

[edit] Radio broadcasts

Outside of New York the Met has been known to audiences in large measure through its many years of live radio broadcasts. The Met's broadcast history goes back to January 1910 when radio pioneer Lee DeForest broadcast two live performances from the stage of the Met that were reportedly heard as far away as Newark, New Jersey. Today the annual Met broadcast season typically begins the first week of December and offers twenty live Saturday matinée performances through May.

The first network broadcast was heard on December 25, 1931, a performance of Engelbert Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel. The series came about as the Met, financially endangered in the early years of the Great Depression, sought to enlarge its audience and support through national exposure on network radio. Initially the broadcasts featured only partial performances. Broadcasts of complete operas began March 11, 1933, with the transmission of Tristan und Isolde with Frida Leider and Lauritz Melchoir.

The live 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. In Canada the live broadcasts have been heard since December 1933 first on the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission[4] and, since 1934, on its successor, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation where they are currently heard on CBC Radio 2.

Technical quality of the broadcasts steadily improved over the years. FM broadcasts were added in the 1950's, transmitted to stations via telephone lines. With the arrival of 1973/74 season, all broadcasts were offered in FM stereo. Satellite technology later allowed uniformly excellent broadcast sound to be sent live world-wide.

The first broadcasts were offered by NBC itself. Later, commercial sponsors included Colgate-Palmolive. Sponsorship of the Saturday afternoon broadcasts by the The Texas Company (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 and included the first PBS television broadcasts. After its merger with Chevron, however, the combined company ChevronTexaco ended its sponsorship of the Met's radio network in April 2004. Emergency grants allowed the broadcasts to continue through 2005 when the 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. Since September 2006 she has also served as host for all of the live and recorded broadcasts on the Met's Sirius satellite radio channel. Other announcers have included Lloyd Moss who twice substituted for Cross and Deems Taylor who was heard briefly as co-host during the early years. In recent seasons William Berger and Ira Siff have been heard as co-hosts with Miss Juntwait.

[edit] 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.[5] Margaret Juntwait was named the official announcer of Metropolitan Opera Radio.[6]

[edit] Television

The Met's experiments with television go back to 1948 when the opening night performance of "Der Rosenkavalier" was broadcast live on network TV. A short-lived experiment with closed circuit telecasts to movie theaters was also attempted, but with the exception of an occasional gala or special the Met did not become a presence on television until 1977. In that year the company began a series of live television broadcasts on public television with a wildly successful live telecast of La Bohème with Renata Scotto and Luciano Pavarotti. This new series of opera on PBS was called Live from the Met. It remained on the air until the early 2000's, although the live broadcasts gave way to taped performances in the 1980's and the series became The Metropolitan Opera Presents. Dozens of televised performances were broadcast including an historic complete telecast of Wagner's Ring Cycle in 1989.

The Met returned to the air on PBS in 2007 in a new series called Great Performances @ The Met. In 2008 the Met and PBS offered an unprecedented fourteen opera telecasts, the most ever presented in one season. In addition to opera, television programs produced at the opera house have included the CBS network special "Sills and Burnett at the Met" in 1976, and the MTV Video Music Awards in 1999 and 2001.

[edit] Met broadcasts to movie theaters

Beginning on December 30, 2006, as part of the company's effort to build revenues and attract new audiences, the Met (along with NCM Fathom)[7] broadcast a series of six performances live via satellite into movie theaters called "Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD".[8] The first broadcast was the Saturday matinee live performance of the 110-minute version of Julie Taymor's production of The Magic Flute.[9] The series was carried in over 100 movie theaters across North America, Japan, Britain and several other European countries.[10] During the 2006-07 season, the series included 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.

These movie transmissions have received wide and generally favorable press coverage.[11] The Met reports that 91% of available seats were sold for the HD performances.[12] 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.[13] The New York Times reported that 324,000 tickets were sold worldwide for the 2006-07 season, while each simulcast cost $850,000 to $1 million to produce.[14]

For the 2007-08 season, eight of the Met's productions are being 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.[15]. The Met plans to broadcast to double the number of theaters in the US as the previous season, as well as to additional countries such as Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. 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.[14][16] 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"[17]

[edit] Opera Houses

The Metropolitan Opera in 1905, looking uptown
The Metropolitan Opera in 1905, looking uptown

[edit] 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) in the Garment District of Midtown. Nicknamed "The Yellow Brick Brewery" for its industrial looking exterior, the original Metropolitan Opera House was designed by J. Cleaveland Cady. On August 27, 1892 the nine-year-old theater was gutted by fire. The 1892-93 season was canceled while the opera house was rebuilt along its original lines.

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 damask stage curtains was installed in 1906, completing the look that the old Metropolitan 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.

While the theater was noted for its excellent acoustics and elegant interior, as early as the turn of the century the backstage facilities were deemed to be severely inadequate for a large opera company. The Met's scenery and sets were a regular sight leaning against the building outside on 39th Street where they had to be shifted between performances. Various plans were put forward over the years to build a new home for the company and designs for new opera houses were created by various architects including Joseph Urban. Proposed new locations included Columbus Circle and what is now Rockefeller Center, but none of these plans came to fruition. Only with the development of Lincoln Center on New York's Upper West Side did the Met finally have the opportunity to build a modern opera house.

The old Met closed on April 16, 1966 with a sentimental gala farewell performance featuring nearly all of the company's current leading artists. Zinka Milanov made her last Met appearance that night, and among the many invited guests was soprano Anna Case who had made her debut at the house in 1906. The original building, having failed to obtain landmark status, was razed in 1967. It was replaced by a modern office building intended to provide a steady income for the opera company.

[edit] 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 building 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."[18] Due to the height of and artwork on the proscenium, it was not feasible to have titles displayed above the stage, as is done 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.[19]

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.[20]

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.[21][22]

On January 5, 1996, tenor Richard Versalle died while playing the role of 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.[23]

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.[24] [25]

[edit] References

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

[edit] 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

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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