The first Met subscribers included members of the Morgan, Roosevelt and Vanderbilt families, all of whom had been excluded from the Academy. They proposed building a new opera house, twice the size of the Academy, on 39th and Broadway, with three tiers of private boxes reserved not for the old elite but for people like them. On 28 April 1880 a group of wealthy industrialists met at Delmonico’s restaurant to canvas for subscriptions. So New York’s new money resolved to build their own opera house, in every way better than the one from which they were excluded. While this might have amused some male arriviste millionaires (and horrified their families), the real social prize was admission to the opera season and ‘new money’ families were frozen out of this. The nouveaux riches were only allowed in for the ‘French balls’, organised by the Cercle Française de l’Harmonie, in which wealthy men would ‘dance’ with semi-dressed prostitutes and courtesans. Only the oldest and most prominent families owned seats in the theatre’s exclusive boxes. Rockefeller III, Philip Johnson, Leontyne Price-that it’s a wonder they could all fit on the Upper West Side.For much of the 19th century the only opera house in New York was the Academy of Music, built by New York’s ‘old money’ elite. It’s full of egos so big- divas, operatic and otherwise, like city planner Robert Moses, John D. But even for those who don’t give a fig for the endless debate over whether Maria Callas was the greatest Carmen, the history of the Met Opera house is a compelling story. It’s a documentary, by Susan Froemke-an editor of the legendary 1975 Grey Gardens-about the Met Opera as edifice, as cultural factory, as a force for social endorsement and upheaval. On May 25, PBS’s Great Performances television program, better known for filming and presenting what happens onstage at the Met, this time delves into the story of the building itself.
You know you are in New York, you know you are at Lincoln Center, and you know something wondrous is about to happen. In the Metropolitan Opera auditorium, just before the performance begins, the many star-shaped crystal chandeliers, shimmering like constellations, soar up to the ceiling together.
0 kommentar(er)
