Met Orchestra Tickets

The Metropolitan Orchestra is an opera company located in New York City. Established at the Lincoln Centre for Performing Arts, the met Opera is housed in the Metropolitan Opera house. Currently the company is in the 129^th season of its production.

It is the performing grounds for the most brilliant minds in theatre. It houses the most skilled architects, from stage directors to composers, the most talented performers from singers to orchestra musicians and the most proficient backstage crew from choreographers to visual artists.

Metropolitan Opera Association is in charge of running the company, with Peter Gelb as the general manager. The Music director is James Levine and he first took post in 1976.

With Gelb and Levine heading the opera, they have brought certain initiatives into perspectives, such as widening the international base of audience. Along with that, they have increased the number of productions significantly and have promised to showcase classical as well as contemporary masterpieces.

The metropolitan opera company came into being in 1880. It was built in response to the behavior of the 'old moneyed' families in New York. The Academy Of Music was frequented by the 'old moneyed' families, where they would show their wealth and social prominence. Tired of being excluded, the newly emerging class of industrialists got together and vowed to build an opera house that would outclass the Academy Of Music in every way. The new opera house opened in 1883 and within 3 years of its existence, the Academy Of Music ceased to exist.

 However in 1892, the opera house was destroyed in a fire. It was rebuilt immediately in 1893 and underwent major renovations in 1903. Although the theatre was elegantly built with red and gold decorations, its stage facilities were quite obsolete. The opening of the Lincoln Centre provided the perfect excuse to relocate and rebuild the theatre as a state of the art glamorous home for the company. The original metropolitan opera saw its last performance on the 16^th of April in 1966 and was demolished a year later.

Designed by architect Wallace K Harrison, the new Metropolitan Opera House opened on 16th September 1966, with the world premiere of Anthony and Cleopatra. With close to a capacity of 4000 people, which includes 3800 seats and 195 standing places located at the top balcony and the rear of the main floor, it adequately caters to the needs of the performers and audience alike. An additional 35 seats can be added, if needed, as the size of the orchestra pit can be reduced. Even then, metropolitan orchestra tickets can be a rarity. It has excellent acoustics and continues to be updated regularly with the ability to handle large and multiple opera productions simultaneously.

The Met has incorporated several technological innovations to make the audience experience better. 'Met tiles' have been installed on the front of each seat, which provide translation of the operas text in English. Rather than the conventional placement of tiles above the stage, the met tiles provide a more customized experience. People can turn the display on or off according to their own preference and the text can be displayed in multiple languages, in order to accommodate the new productions in Spanish or German. This innovation cost around $2.7 million and was introduced in 1995, under the orders of Joseph Volpe.

In addition to the technical advancements, the Met Opera has also set foot into the multimedia. Its radio broadcast of shows, dates back to the 1930's. Now, the 'Metropolitan Opera Radio', a twenty-four hour opera channel has been established on satellite radio. It broadcasts live operas during the performing seasons. Live high definition performances were also telecasted directly to over a 100 movie theatres in order to attract a larger audience. The internet is a source for excerpts or even full audios and videos of Operas. People can tune in to the Metropolitan Opera Radio via the internet as well.