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An Opera Gala for Everyone to Attend
The Metropolitan Opera is courting new fans this season, starting with a new production of Tosca
Karita Mattila in the title role of Puccini’s Tosca (Photo: Brigitte Lacombe/Metropolitan Opera)
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The Metropolitan Opera’s interactive programming planned for the 2009/2010 season starts with a gala premiere that involves you! Tickets to opening night might cost most of us our monthly rent, but the Met is focused on attracting new fans and shaking the stuffy image generally associated with opera, so the season premiere, a new production of the classic, tragic tale of Tosca, is being performed live in the opera house for benefactors and broadcast to the public for free, via live transmissions onto large outdoor screens in Times Square and at Lincoln Center. You don’t get the cocktail reception, or an invite to the black-tie cast dinner following the performance, but you’re still in for a treat!
Music Director James Levine—the little man with the big hair that always slightly silhouettes the stage—conducts Puccini’s popular classic, renewed by the talents of Met newcomers, director Luc Bondy and designer Richard Peduzzi. Karita Mattila, who regularly wows Met audiences as saucy temptress Salome, sings the title role of Tosca—famous for securing fellow soprano Maria Callas legendary diva status—for the first time outside her native Finland. Tosca is a must-see for opera devotees, so for novices it’s a good start to begin a foray into this seemingly “bougie” world of musical theatre.
However, if sitting outside isn’t your thing but your interest is piqued, the Met accommodates, bringing opera to a movie theater near you. The fourth season of “The Met Live in HD” series, screens season highlights including Aida, Turandot, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Carmen and Hamlet, and nine live performance transmissions. Eager to appease longtime subscribers while attracting new faces, Music Director Peter Gelb summarizes the elegant and opulent opera house’s mission, saying, “We have gained a new and larger public that we’re determined to keep by continuing to present the world’s leading artists in compelling new productions and appealing revivals.”
Offering something for everyone, the Met lures patrons through the 60s-flavored façade, along the plush cranberry stair runners, into the grandiose hall punctuated by one-of-a-kind chandeliers that descend from and retract towards a gilded roof, with a fresh season featuring eight new productions, including four Met premieres. Diva doters will be entranced by Renée Fleming as the sorceress in the premiere of Rossini’s Armida (Apr. 12); and delighted by Deborah Voigt doing Wagner proud as Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman); combat enthusiasts can learn of the Hun’s demise in Verdi’s Attila, featuring costumes by Miuccia Prada (Feb. 23); and the glum can wade in Janáček’s macabre From the House of the Dead, based on the Dostoyevsky novel (Nov. 12).
Though perfectly adequate to enjoy outdoors or on the big screen, opera is best experienced live and in person, and there’s no better place than seated before the Metropolitan Opera stage. With $20 discounted tickets available (two per person), two hours before performances, everyone can afford to be a patron of the arts.