From its opening in 1883, the Metropolitan Opera House has featured the world’s most famous performers. Despite a catastrophic fire in 1892 that shut it down for a year, the opera house became a significant musical and social landmark in New York City, one that remains central to the city’s cultural life.
The impetus for the construction of the Metropolitan Opera House (commonly known as the Met) was the inability of wealthy Manhattan socialites to obtain box seats at the New York Academy of Music. These socialites resolved to found a new opera house—one that not only would provide them seats but also could measure up to the great opera houses of Europe. The house opened in 1883, and, despite being shut down in 1892 because of a fire,
Opera first came to New York City in 1825, when French and Italian operas were performed at the Park Theatre. The first concert venue dedicated specifically to opera performance was the Italian Opera House, which opened its doors in 1833; however, the Italian Opera House became merely one of three short-lived and only moderately successful opera houses in New York. It burned down just six years after its opening, and its two successors, Palmo’s Opera House and the Astor Place Opera House, lasted for four and five seasons, respectively.
The Academy of Music opened on October 2, 1854, and became the mainstay for New York opera-goers for more than thirty years, as well as a venue for concert performances. It boasted the largest stage in the world. Audiences flocked to the Academy of Music, but only partly to see the operatic masterpieces being performed on the stage: One of the attractions of opera-going was seeing the wealthy socialites in their private boxes, which were in prominent view on either side of the stage. In essence, the occupants of the boxes, “old money” New York socialites of the so-called Knickerbocker aristocracy, were part of the show (and perhaps the entire show) for the rest of the audience.
The Metropolitan Opera House, on the corner of Thirty-Ninth Street and Broadway in Manhattan.
Many wealthy New Yorkers, including members of the Vanderbilt and Roosevelt families, were unable to obtain boxes at the Academy of Music and thus were unable to show off themselves and their wives to the public. As the famous singer Lilli Lehmann
After initially convening on April 10, 1880, the board of directors obtained their site the next year, and the doors to the Metropolitan Opera House opened on the night of October 22, 1883, with a performance of French composer Charles Gounod’s
Faust
Don Giovanni (pr. 1787). The acting director and producer for the Met was Henry Abbey
For the next seven seasons, the Met produced almost exclusively German operas, including works by German composer Richard Wagner
Der Ring des Nibelungen (pr. 1869-1876; The Ring of the Nibelung, commonly known as the Ring cycle) in January of 1889. The Ring cycle was taken on tour and performed in seven other cities during the 1888-1889 season. Notable singers who performed at the Met during this period included Christine Nilsson
However, the emphasis on German opera, including the long, heavy Wagnerian works that bored some audiences, ended in 1891, when the board decided to shift back to the Met’s original emphasis on French and Italian opera; this decision coincided with the rehiring of Henry Abbey
Ironically, the fire brought about several much-needed improvements to the building. Board members and stockholders raised money to help with the reconstruction, which began in April, 1893. The one-season break in productions and the money raised for the Met’s reconstruction allowed some of the budget issues that had arisen during the “German years” to be resolved. The Met reopened on November 27, 1893, again with a performance of Gounod’s Faust,
Since its beginnings during the late nineteenth century, the Metropolitan Opera House has remained a musical, cultural, and social epicenter in New York City, attracting audiences from all levels of society to see the finest performers in the world. Its illustrious history in the twentieth century included the tenure of legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini
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Allison, John. Great Opera Houses of the World. London: Rolls House, 2004. Contains a detailed architectural study of the Metropolitan Opera House. -
Johanna Fiedler. The Mayhem Behind the Music at the Metropolitan Opera. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2001. A candid and entertaining look at the behind-the-scenes activities at the Met, told by a former press representative. -
Kolodin, Irving. The Metropolitan Opera, 1883-1966. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1966. Examines the eighty-three years of opera at the original location at Thirty-Ninth Street and Broadway. -
Mayer, Martin. The Met: One Hundred Years of Grand Opera. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983. Well-illustrated study of the Met and its performances from 1883 to 1983. -
The Metropolitan Opera. www.metopera.org. The official Web site of the Metropolitan opera, upgraded in March of 2005, whose history database contains detailed accounts of every performance since 1883, as well as facsimiles of programs, portraits, and stage set designs. Accessed February 20, 2006.
Professional Theaters Spread Throughout America
Rossini’s The Barber of Seville Debuts
Wagner’s Flying Dutchman Debuts
Bizet’s Carmen Premieres in Paris
First Performance of Wagner’s Ring Cycle
Puccini’s Tosca Premieres in Rome
Georges Bizet; Charles Gounod.