So the Met’s suddenly cool among young people…
NewsThat’s the gist of the latest gush from the New York Times:
A Friday performance this month of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” drew a crowd that included dozens of attendees not yet old enough to rent a car.
“I’m usually dressed better,” said Patience Opaola, 23, who was taking a selfie by the fountain with her 17-year-old sister, Precious. It was Ms. Opaola’s fifth show since September; before then she had never seen a single opera. Her favorite so far? Giacomo Puccini’s “La Bohème,” which she described as “the grandfather of ‘Rent.’”…
No reference is made to the Met’s internal demographics, which show an average attendance age in the 60s.
What the Met wants to read is: Drawn by cheaper tickets and a sense of glamour, New Yorkers in their 20s and 30s are making their way to the Met this season, many of them for the first time.
This observational journalism could have been written by the Met’s press department.
Come to think of it, probably was.
Picture: Lise Davidsen in 2009: a fan at the Met
Even without Tommassini, the cheerleading at the Times continues.
Fake MSM news of all types is imploding by their own hand. So much the better.
For example it is notable that CNN has rarely covered the arts unless of course there’s a negative angle like Levine’s boy rapes at the MET. It goes to show how uneducated and lacking in character they are. With Cuomo canceled along with his once powerful brother and that sexually criminal producer John Griffin nicked by the FBI it’s all part of the Democrat bedrock. All of the left-wing media supports crime from within and is paying for it.
https://www.mychamplainvalley.com/news/local-news/chris-cuomos-ex-producer-arrested-charges-involve-vt
Let’s not forget Jake Tapper’s producer who also just got nicked, Rick Saleeby.
https://goodwordnews.com/twitter-censors-account-that-alleged-another-pedophilia-scandal-on-cnn-rt-usa-news/
As for the NYT, they have had their cheerleaders for numerous vile people on the left only of course. Eventually the truth comes out without their narrative spin and will do them in too. At least it was they who finally gave all of Levine’s victims a platform in spite of their own turmoils in house after decades of enabling him without journalistic pursuits of his arrests.
Neither Levine (who had no politics whatsoever) or Cuomo are “men of the left”. And right-wing champions of Trump (such as yourself) are in no place to talk about “covering up crimes” (sexual or otherwise) “from within”.
At least they have Fire Shut Up in My Bones finally behind them…pitched in the dumpster.
Not even the Times could muster a decent, cogent review after tickets were offered for 25 usd. Norman was even too embarrassed on their behalf to air the MET’s failings. It was THAT rancid!
Fire Shut Up in My Bones was great, and to my knowledge sold pretty well. I imagine there’s a decent chance the MET will revive it. I bet you didn’t even watch it.
He is simply opposed to anything Black.
Dozens in a house of 3,975?!
And Precious is such a lovely name
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75R1AW5YrZ4
Hmm. Not sure who would be more insufferable to encounter at the opera: stuffy oldsters who feel it’s “their” house, or pretentious Gen Z-ers whose parents gave them affected names.
Mmmm…sister Precious does rather take away from the notion that Patience received a name in the old Quaker tradition of naming girls after the virtues — Patience, Hope, Charity, Faith, etc.
On the other hand, if young Precious comes often enough she may see a singer onstage who makes her feel her name is not quite as silly as she has always thought (though Oprah WInfrey had something to do with some movie with that name).
You can’t blame kids for what their parents named them.
Magic Flute, innit! Opera North did a wonderfully paired down version in English, affordable, and the place was full of very enthisiastic Yorkshire kids.
I attend regularly and would say the article is right, especially this season (based on 6 performances) there’s a definite increase in the number of younger people and I would say (based on listening to their conversations in the seats around me) that they’re new to the Met and to opera in general. My favorite remark when YNS stepped on stage for his curtain call after Tosca “oh look – he’s so short!”
Are most of these comps? With the Gelb regime, it’s always a question.
Such nonsense. Gelb still thinks like a publicist (instead of as an artist) and the NYT, once the home of his powerful father, prattles on.
Magic Flute and La Boheme.
Hmmmm.
I’m surprised that they didn’t mention any of the wonderful new stuff that attracts new audiences, or so they say.
Odd. If young people are coming, so much the better. May they see in La Bohème what they see, quality will always prevail. The mistake would be to downgrade what we do to try to appeal to others.
Younger generations are ‘put off’ by those who actually have talent. They have neither the education nor attention span for what they are wrongly taught to be “white privileged” endeavors to be made fun of and marginalized.
In opera there’s generally no nudity, penetrative sex on stage, personal crotch grabbing, swearing, audience interaction like yelling or hollering, big pyrotechnics, open drug use by performers or the audience let alone anything overtly permissive allowing the audience to express themselves when THEY feel like it.
Kids only pay for trashy, ugly rap or pop concerts today. They vicariously emulate black folks manufactured grievances for sport. Gelb must have offered free tickets or did what Kamala has to; PAY FOR LOVE or rent actors..
Is this satire, mocking the attitudes of old farts? If not, it is just sad. And, by the way, not all kids are white: ‘black folks’ have kids too.
“Poor kids are just as bright as white kids” – Let’s go Brandon!
Of course you have Kamala to ‘fall back on’ as she does regularly since her Willy Brown days. Maybe her staff can pinch a MET ticket for her before they all walk out on her.
Neither of them are doing anything constructive save their racism toward blacks.
Jane L. ‘s posting is, I hope, satirical. If not, it betrays her embarrassing, horrendous ignorance. Norman Lebrecht, is this sort of posting OK in your eyes? Norman blocks criticism of him but lets this trash through.
Jane L – This has to be one of the craziest posts I’ve ever seen on this site. And that’s saying a lot.
LOL: “La Bohème,” which she described as “the grandfather of ‘Rent.’” Butterfly is then grandmother of “Miss Saigon”? And Tosca is, um, like, ya know, kinda #MeToo? The optimist in me says whatever it takes to get the youts in the opera house. The pessimist says Western Culture is going, going, gone…
Why do you disparage a 23-year-old who notes a parallel between a new (to her) opera and a film she already knows? Isn’t that kind of association the basis of half the exams you ever wrote in your lit classes? Good on her!
She’s not wrong. And if shows like Rent get people to look at their antecedents, something has been accomplished. (Might WSS get some of them to attend a performance of R&J, if such a thing can be had in New York?).
Puccini is the grandfather of every Andrew Lloyd Webber musical….
By it’s treatment of its’ artists during COVID the Met has brought shame upon itself.
What’s shameful is your misuse of apostrophes! Yeesh!
A Slipped Disc trifecta – attacking the Met, the New York Times, and (in the early comments) Peter Gelb. Not to mention the snide comment about the operagoer’s first name.
In this era of declining and aging audiences, why not celebrate that some young people are newly attracted to opera, whatever their motivation, whatever their cultural references? To expect a young person to have the same cultural background as someone much older is unrealistic and off-putting.
There is a story there, no matter how it was originally sourced.
The key figure in that whole utterance might be “cheaper tickets.” The price keeps a lot of people away. Especially in times when so many were unemployed, or only part-paid.
Normal MET tickets aren’t cheap, so it’s not really surprising that its average audience member might be in their 60s. Plus having four free hours on a weeknight is kind of difficult if you have to work the next morning. Also difficult to attend when you have kids. So people with money and with kids who don’t need babysitters seem to be the most likely audience.
The Met continues to perform while Omicron is hitting their orchestra, chorus and soloists very aggressively.
There has been many more red empty seats the days leading to Xmas but not enough for dear Geb to realize he can’t put employees and audiences at risk just because he needs to make more money.