Peter Gelb: The 3x billionaires are no longer interested in the arts
OperaIn an interview with the German gadfly Axel Brüggemann, the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager admits he no longer has access to the philanthropy of the super-rich.
‘The triple-digit billionaires are not so much interested in the arts,’ he sighs. ‘They don’t understand the arts as well as we wish they did.’
Gelb adds: ‘The audience for opera theatre have got even older, and our donors are fewer.’
The Met Opera’s movie business has been particularly badly hit.
‘Everyone was asleep at the wheel for the second half of te 20th century,’ he claims, denouncing his predecessors.
Movie business was terrific when it started, but for the last three operas – Dead Man Walking, Malcolm X and Florenciacin the Amazon – there were 6, 7 and 4 in British cinemas in York and the last in Wandsworth, London last Saturday. Leeds not very pleasant on a Saturday night, but then Bradford showing at the National Media Museum has now pulled the plug on the showings. There were about 20 at that but found not to be a financially viable – and all shoqn on cinema screens holding 200 to 250 people. All I can say is that I enjoyed all three operas enormously – ones I didn’t know so keen to see and learn something new at my advancing age people have changed their habits and spending since the pandemic, the serious cost of living crisis, and now Christmas. Opera North audiences also struggling both in Leeds and Manchester. My upper balcony season ticket has been upgraded two years running to side stalls.
We live in France and saw Florencia in the Amazon on Saturday, which I absolutely loved. There were 10 of us in the theatre.
In some way young people have to be drawn into the world of opera or else it’s doomed. The old ones only seem interested in the ‘golden oldies’ and that’s such a pity. Often we’ve been tempted not to go because they’re showing something we don’t know and then been delighted we went.
Maybe schools need to be encouraged to introduce young people to this magical world?
Here in the US, our local cinema in Michigan City, IN, used to get about 25 per show. Malcolm X got 3. Not sure how long the cinema will keep doing it at that rate. Part of this is bad timing – if thees thee more modern shows had been later in the season I bet they would do better. I know the Met thinks they are selling tickets in house but that simply means they can sell out 6 Malcolm X more easily than 18 Nabuccos.
“Opera North audiences also struggling both in Leeds and Manchester.”
Bodes well for ENO then. And touring companies which, so far as I’m aware, were doing rather well, have been cut in spite of having the flexibility to go anywhere (within reason).
Does anyone in the Arts Council know what they are doing? Silly question.
I have enjoyed the screenings of the Met’s recent contemporary opera’s in my local cinema too. Similarly under attended. It seems to me that many of the (older) audience for screenings of “traditional” opera’s don’t go, including some of my friends. What strikes me though is that there is a potential new audience of non-traditional opera goers who might enjoy them. How to attract them is the challenge.
Never a good idea to malign your predecessors. Remember, Peter, you will be one yourself in a few years…
The time honored tradition of noblesse oblige is long gone. Most of the new breed of super-rich didn’t come from an old-money family in which support of the fine arts was expected. But the Met isn’t being very smart either: they need to wake up and allow streaming into private homes like the Berlin Philharmonic has done.
You are apparently unaware of Met Opera On Demand, the Met’s streaming service.
Not available in the US
But Met Opera on Demand doesn’t include any live streaming.
Huh?
https://www.metopera.org/season/radio/sirius-weekly-schedule/
I’ve been a DCH subscriber since the start and love it. But they’re the only orchestra in the world that has been able to pull it off; lots of orchestras stream concerts or put them on Youtube, which is great. But few would be able to get people to pay $150/year to watch them. I’m not sure the MET could do it, either.
I like the Live in HD series because I want to see the shows on a big screen with other people around. I suppose they could offer a home streaming option, too, but it wouldn’t be the same.
Oh, the irony … The Met does in fact have a streaming service you can use at home, but do they publicise it? No. Is there a big “Streaming Service” link on their website home page? No. Is there much worth watching on it? No. We’ve just cancelled our subscription.
Mind you, Glyndebourne has the same problem. It’s streaming service is brilliant, but try finding it on their website.
Perhaps they both think that streaming is for hoi polloi, instead of a much-needed source of additional revenue?
I subscribe to the Met Opera streaming for less than $20 monthly in San Antonio.
I have access to the archive and new productions are made available within a year of stage debut. It is a grand deal!!
Without a doubt much has changed in our world and especially in the Arts. New strategies are needed for sure. But – right: go ahead and blame everything and everybody, while any observer can see where, in this specific instance, the real problem lies…
It might be due to Gelb’s borderline xenophobic, extremist left wing, fascist and virtue signalling views, and his utter stubborn arrogance with withholding them, especially amongst Eastern Europe.
“extremist left wing, fascist”
Pick a lane. Or at least look up the word “fascism.”
I’ve read this five times and I still don’t understand what you’re talking about…………
If anything he was far too kind to Russian artists over the years as they were MASSIVELY overrepresented in casting even well past their sell-by date. Still are to some degree while many fine Italian, French, German and Scandinavian singers barely ever appear to the Met.
Wow are you right. Way too many Russian singers.
I’m trying to make sense of your comment. Restate it in English, please.
I think he means music and political grandstanding don’t mix.
From the person who never misses a chance to politically grandstand, that’s rich.
Remember when you turned a young violinist’s suicide into a chance to rant about wokeness? Pepperidge Farm remembers….
Kitchen drawer right below the sink. Left side, bottle of blue pills. Take two. Lie down.
Not observing much, are you? Please read up on the definition of fascism. And btw – his wife is Ukrainian.
That’s the narrative, however, Kerri Lynne was born in Milwaukee and received her education in Canada and the US. She is “Ukrainian” by partial descent.
She is an American, full stop. I was born and raised in the US, but by her definition, I could claim I am fully German.
Would you like some dressing with that word salad?
If by this screed and reference to eastern Europe, you are decrying Peter and the Met’s decision to cast that Putin-apologist Russian diva to the curb for her defense of the Ukran8an invasion, self-portrayed as censorship of her “right” of free speech, so be it. The last thing the arts community needs in the 21st century is a newer version of Unity Mitford or Mrs. Mosely, her sister, staunch defenders of Hitler and Fascism. With any luck, when the war ends badly for Putin, the banished Russian diva, pulled from scrubbing floors at the Bolshoi, can shot herself if despair just like Unity. There’s a true unity of historical purpose.
He does have a point. Don’t see Bill Gates, Bezos or Elon caring much about the arts.
They’re too busy ‘saving the planet’ from climate catastrophe. Pick a card.
How could they? They are young enough to have been raised without any exposure to the arts in schools. Bill Gates, at least, is not ungenerous to good causes. It would appear that no-one from the arts has ever made the case for supporting them to him.
I know little of the others, but assume they do have philanthropic arms to their operations.
It would probably be a hard sell to any of them to support something like opera, which seems increasingly to appeal to the blue-rinse well-to-do, rather than diseases and medical research, to which some of them have contributed.
What is needed is an approach based upon the value of the arts and the urgent need to develop serious educational programmes that would at least expose young people to music, theatre, painting, other arts. Some of these billionaires are interested in long term projects, and this is one of them. It has short-term urgencies that could be helped as well, but it is the value of the endeavour that would have to be brought to them.
just because a person is rich does not mean they like
opera or classical
music.
Until now, doing well was never divorced from doing good. These neo-Gilded Age robber barons, unlike the union-busting Carnegie or slave-labor coal baron Gordon, have no interest in any legacy to compensate for their greed other than self-promotion using designer t-shirts, flying Bowie into space, or schools that abuse young women or providing inoculations in Africa while 1 in 6 children in America go hungry
At a time when orchestras are reinventing themselves by offering variety to capture younger and more modern listeners, much (not all) of the opera world stubbornly insists carrying on with its dusty productions and exclusive vibe. In order to survive, all arts organizations need to find new ways to identify and maintain cultural relevance to a broader audience. It’s time to dismantle the pomp and make classical music and opera inclusive experiences. THEN maybe the new generation of the top 1% would feel more invested in supporting our musical institutions.
This is an argument which has been had since the days of Beethoven when his works were trumped by the silly Rossini operas in Vienna.
On the contrary, I want to go (with my children) to traditional productions rather than running the gauntlet of modern “takes” and woke infestation. It would only be once we had familiarised ourselves with traditional productions that we would be interested in trying something else. Even then, we would be very careful about what to see.
Maybe advertising savvy would work. See and hear Handel’s new revised MESSIAH featuring Mariah-the Queen of Christmas. The Mariah Messiah upgrade is available for streaming. Expect lots of melismatic “ornamentation” via the diva’s whistle tones.
Gelbs appears to be quite an outdated fixture at the Met, especially after his ugly public demonstrations of his leftist political views and motivations. The latest example was his creating & handling the situations with Anna Netrebko and Ludmila Monastyrskaya. Further, letting Monastyrskaya using Ukrainian flag at the end of the opera show(s) does not seem to belong to the Met, or any other cultural organisation to that matter. The true high art is way above the politics that Gelbs seems to be playing. No wonder that the Met’s donors turned away from there. I keep wondering if the Met Board of Directors is taking notes of its leader’s performance in his administrative and PR dealings.
He has completely forgotten, apparently, that in the US most people IN the Arts are progressive and most people who fund the Arts generously are conservative. If you’re in leadership, you keep your political views to yourself. Speaking from experience.
Oh another whining Russian ….what a shock!
When the war broke out in Ukraine, Daniel Barenboim performed the Ukranian national anthem in Berlin with the Staatsoper at an adhoc concert to support Ukraine. The german Chancellor, Olaf Scholz was in attendance. The Staatsoper chorus sang and everyone stood up. In addition, Barenboim spoke about his family who came from that area and immigrated to Buenos Aires.
Excellent thoughts about wrong policy of Peter Gelbs he mixed his political views with art and operas.
He should distinguish art from politics I am sorry to see world known opera singers left Met Opera due to this wrong view.
If he offends Putin sympathizers – especially such designated lackies as Mrs. and Mr. Netrebko, Abdrazakov and Gergiev (all vastly overpromoted mediocrities at this point), so much the better. They qualify as “moral vermin”.
He is certainly right when it comes to US donors (and we can’t expect non-Americans to offer huge sums to the Met). It’s part of the dumbing down of US education that happened years ago and is getting worse. No Arts ed. No opera loving gazillionaires. Personally I wish Warren Buffett or Bill Gates would step up, but they are interested in things like curing Malaria and I can’t argue with that initiative………..
That, plus running items in the NYT written by an Italian academic that things could ‘get ugly’ if billionaires keep money for themselves. Why would any self-respecting billionaire feel more philanthropic after a serve like this?
Dumb. To the enth degree.
Even if they’re “keeping it for themselves” they’re usually investing it (which benefits others as well). Unless they’re stuffing it in a mattress….
Or maybe they just don’t like you, Peter Gelb.
Maybe you are a lot less charming than you think you are outside the Met building, when not in the cocoon that is your close circle of sycophants inside the executive suite of your offices.
Spot on. You must work in the opera house. PG’s “inner circle” have their noses so far up his b**t that it isn’t funny. For their fealty, they preserve ridiculously high salaries and job security, despite the long precarious finances of the company.
I would never use the word “charm” when referring to Peter. Perhaps “repellent”.
Oh I’ve met him – he isn’t charming at all…………..
Gelb has been at the helm of the Met for nearly 20 years. Any problems they may be facing are a direct result of his “leadership.” I would at least respect him a little bit if we would accept accountability for his poor management rather than attempting to pass the buck.
Is this primarily about the super rich, or is it that genres that do not evolve die? If opera could relate to the worldviews of the tech moguls, for example, the money would flow abundantly.
This year’s cinematic productions, Dead Man Walking, Malcolm X, and Florencia in the Amazon, all look backward, as if all that warbling, incomprehensible bel canto bellowing trudging along at a snails pace would somehow speak to the modern world. Sadly, people see nothing but vastly over-stylized hokeyness, and not entirely without good reason.
I myself love bel canto. It’s one of the greatest achievements of western culture, but for better or worse, it doesn’t, for the most part, belong to the future. It is tragic that opera now has itself in such an ossified state that it is almost impossible for it to grow even if it wanted to.
Great comments. A culture brought up on Taylor Swift (Time ‘Woman of the Year’) is hardly going to ‘transgress’ towards “Fidelio” any time soon. Besides, they all have their electronic distractions. The only ones we had were cinema and TV and that latter was often sub-standard.
It’s so sad today to see young people in ‘social’ settings all looking independently at their iphones. Very reminiscent of Ted Hughes’ poem “The Jaguar”…..”the apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun..”
Always good to have a poet quoted (I might be more inclined toward Yeats’ Slouching towards Bethlehem but I reserve that for current US politics). My 90+ year old mother reliably informs me that your Taylor Swift comment was observed about Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Elvis and the Beatles……now if you’d have suggested the current fondness for rap I would wholeheartedly agree. It may be rhythm but it ain’t music…….
If bel canto and the artistry of operatic voice and storytelling , (as you rightly say) are among the “greatest achievements of western culture” then it is not opera which is ossified and faces a tragic future but civilization itself. Good thing opera has survived several pandemics, world wars, and more than a few variations of civi. If you love opera share it with others and carry the flame!
I am, and as a composer, attempting major transformations of opera. Examples here:
http://www.osborne-conant.org/theater.htm
In relation to audiences being older, one aspect of this is that people used to have babies in their 20s, off their hands in their 40s and start coming back into theatres once they no longer needed baby-sitters. Men were often dragged along by non-working wives. Now they might be sixty, and of course, just like the billionaires, they inhabit a more fractured society. [On the comment on Dead Man Walking – excellent production by graduate students at Guildhall earlier this year. Warning signs at door that some people might find execution of prisoners ‘upsetting’. ]
I’m still dragged along my a non-working wife…..
When today’s fatcats want to throw their cash around somewhere, they want to get it back eventually. They all have Christie’s and Sotheby’s on speed dial, and Larry Gagosian is godfather to their kids. If the tchotchkes they are buying don’t end up hidden in a freeport somewhere, they are providing they only color in their modernist greige interiors. When the market conditions are right, those baubles are converted back into cash. Can’t do that with a donation to the opera.
Gone the days, apparently, when the well-to-do invited top opera singers or ballet dancers to entertain in their ballrooms, or even larger reception rooms. Even Downton Abbey had an episode in which Dame Nellie Melba (played by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa) was invited to perform at a weekend party.
Maybe it’s because Gelb is a questionable financial steward?
My comment is surely unprintable.
Oh give it a try – you’d be amazed what gets “printed” on here………..
Worked for an opera company years . A friend was hired by the Met around the 70/80’s . They said that Gelb was going to ruin the MET . He is every thing you said !george
I realize Gelb-bashing is seemingly a prerequisite for commenting on this site, but what did he say here that is actually empirically incorrect?
He’s not wrong, but he’s also not been powerless to do something about it.
It could be because the Met is putting out a product that the rich don’t want to support. Opera productions aren’t “beautiful anymore”. It could be because the rich are constantly maligned by so many artists and arts administrations…and then those same people turn around and ask for their money. If I had that kind of money and was constantly attacked, I wouldn’t give it to the arts organizations either. I think about the Koch family. They have given MUCH to the arts but are constantly bashed by people for their political views (I’m not say that this isn’t understandable). However, when you’re constantly attacked, you might not want to just open the wallets back to those who are attacking you. I think the Koch money has really backed off. Gelb constantly complains, as well, about the audience aging…but other than throwing out ugly productions and operas with subject matter which is not “entertaining” after a long day’s work, what has he done? Opera used to have a sense of “escapism” from all of the realities of the world…now, you can’t get away from the ugliness of the world even in an opera house. And, at the prices the Met charges and in tough economic times…what does he expect? And, of course, none of this touches the fact that, for 50 years, the arts have been greatly diminished in the schools. We are now seeing the chickens come home to roost.
The Koch family as a whole didn’t give much money to the arts; David Koch did. He has been dead for a few years now, which would explain the drop in contributions.
David Koch (who I knew) gave to Lincoln Center to name a building, full stop. No other reason. Other than politics, he was more interested in medicine and medical research.
His late estranged brother, Fred (who I also knew), was a dilettante who gave to several arts organizations. Strange man, but relatively generous, given his more limited (but still sizable) resources.
Not just the MET. I’m from Seattle, with four of the richest people in the history of the world – Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Steve Ballmer, and the late Paul Allen – and countless other wealthy people you’ve never heard of. Some of them support the Symphony or the Opera, no doubt, but neither has a large endowment even compared to peer organizations, to say nothing of what they could have even with modest donations from the massively wealthy people in the community.
Gelb is a classic joke of an “elitist,” blaming the public because it doesn’t respond to the “elitists'” view of art. Look at the Met’s Saturday afternoon offerings this year. Half of them are new, which means they will lack melody, grandeur, the glamor of great art, and the invoking in its audiences of a desire to return to them again and again and again which great art elicits. But oh, they will be Woke!
The Met was doing just fine until this insufferable hack bureaucrat came in in 2006.
They’re not interested because he ruined it. His predecessors knew opera. He doesn’t.
Mr. Gelb has never fully embraced the reason why he was hired in the first place. He was not hired to bring the Met to the world through the motion picture screen, he was hired to bring great opera to the New York Public. His predecessors understood what he himself was never able to grasp and that is that people will come to New York from all over the world to partake of great opera. The Met is part of the “New York Scene”, “The New York Experience”. While he was busy trying to bring trash to the world, he failed to realize that he was tasked with serving the island of Manhattan first and foremost. Would that The Board of the Metropolitan Opera would see that their “Brainstorm” failed a good decade ago and that he should escorted from the building. But, I guess they get their tax write off whether there are people in the seats or not.
Gelb. I know you’re reading this- DO SOMETHING. All YOU EVER SEEM TO ACCOMPLISH IS WHINE ABOUT ALL THE HARDSHIP YOU’VE FACED AT THE MET. don’t get me wrong, you’re amazing at that. I particularly love the devilish grin you have when delivering bad news. It’s awesome! Also, you wear a black suit and t shirt very well. So stylish – but can you’d be just as effective standing in front of the met with a sign that reads ‘boo-hoo nobody likes opera’
Dude- yer done.
Maybe it’s time to remind people that when asked why the Met wasn’t presenting a new opera every year, James Levine’s response was something like “I wish there were one new work a year that was good enough for the Met to perform.” That’s as foolish as it is parochial.
I would say Gelb was completely correct about this particular nonsense.
Actually, Levine was pretty close to the truth. The new operas being produced at the Met are mostly serving extra-musical purposes for the most part. Only a couple that I saw held together musically. During his time, the Met was mounting some great 20th century repertory, though, that deserved to be heard. Think of all the Britten, Janacek, Prokofiev, and Busoni operas that were performed that were so stellar; then look at how few of them we have seen in the last decade. Also, Levine was a pretty messed up human being, but he did maintain a high level musically, and there were many high level guest conductors as well. That hasn’t been the same under Gelb, who seems to forget that the quality of your product shouldn’t slip while you grasp at short term, flashier ways to gather attention.
I give Levine credit for doing Lulu, Wozzeck, and Dialogues of the Carmelites consistency.
But in his time he actually got a lot of criticism for the lack of great guest conductors, accused of hogging the podium himself. He said one time something like “If Bernstein, Karajan, or Solti wants an opera that I’m doing, I’ll give it to them in a second.”
The quality “guest” conductors mostly appeared once Levine’s day-to-day administrative role was reduced in part due to his incessant (self-induced) illnesses, i.e. more appeared in the early Gelb years than during the Volpe administration. Other than Carlos Kleiber and very few others, it was Levine all the time and otherwise mediocrities (including the then highly-overpraised Gergiev) who dominated thoroughout the 1980s to mid-2000s.
i think a lot of their misinformation comes from younger generations accessing tickets in untraditional untraceable ways? being jazzed up by seeing dead man walking twice and malcolm x twice, i dragged my revived corpse into nabucco AND la
boheme for the umpteenth time even though I already sworn them off… but none of my tickets have been subscription for years and years, because friends have a bartering system, impossible restaurant reservations with specific dollar amounts of food & beverage, kinda hard to track down my attendance 3)
While I suspect your Visitor Number is on the high side for SD, I will recount that Levine was pretty conservative about what constituted “great” opera. Once he was coming into Cafe Des Artists in NYC while I was coming out so I asked him “perhaps you could do the Midsummer Marriage?” He said “it’s great – but they won’t come.”
Well, killing musical education in schools starting in mid 80s (in the US) inevitably has had its consequences a couple of generations later. In a country as rich as the US there are no real good music schools for children even in large cities. It is not a matter of funding, it is a matter of priorities.
ABSOLUTELY TRUE. American performing arts institutions have largely ignored the systemic dismantling of music education in schools over the past 40 years. Now we have a disinterested generation because we have an ignorant generation.
These institutions should have been lobbying the government and school boards to include arts education over the past four decades. Rather, many have opted to fund only their own initiatives, heartfelt, but woefully limited in scope.
Surely the short guy in the middle doesn’t need a billionaire sponsor to afford a shirt.
The main reason the billionaires aren’t interested in serious music is that serious music is grounded in the spiritual. Billionaires are materialists. They have no use for things of the spirit, as it doesn’t make them money. They aren’t even that smart. They just have a talent for making money.
Woke / DEI influence in the arts has chased off existing and would be attendees. Opera is a classical, European art form. Enjoy your Malcolm X opera. Hard pass.
Perhaps you’d be happier at a racial bonfire or lynching?
The first thing Gelb did was to cancel the New Years Eve presentation where there was a party scene with singers singing something fabulous. I think the singers loved it and the tv viewers loved it. So why was it cancelled?
While I agree, there were very few instances where the party scenes of Fledermaus or Merry Widow (pre-Gelb) with invited guests were filmed. Certainly, not televised, either live nor taped.
However, it was great fun and a sadly lost tradition.
at tannhauser on saturday night, they shut and locked the doors at 7:02pm… “NO LATE SEATING!!! IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT!!! YOU SHOULD ARRIVE ON TIME!!!” — except in my two decades of going to The Met [and emphatically furiously corroborated by a few people in the noisy side screening room where at least 120 other people got locked out, because there were huge protests everywhere, tons of roads barricaded, tons of subway delays, swat teams all over the place] “curtain” would typically be a few minutes after the printer start time, and “lockout” would be a few minutes after that. So “no late seating” should be in accordance with tradition, no? The unspoken constants. But if they’re rubbing guests’ lateness in their faces, then certain 7:02 is also late, right? Zero offers for refunds, not even a free soda at the bar, nothing whatsoever. So only was my ticket a fortune, I had to wait in a crowded hellish room for 80 minutes, I had to miss 1/3 of the production, and I had to suffer the nightmare commute here and back… Will I remember this when it comes time to where to donate my life’s savings? Are they intentionally alienating their future donors, and then making themselves the victims?
The “hellish room” was List Hall, which is far from the devil’s lair you describe. It is a comfortable accommodation for latecomers.
Late seating is always tricky, especially after the protests that erupted in the auditorium a few weeks ago. Plus, the running time for Tannhauser is long, so it is imperative to avoid any delays, lest the performance go into overtime, not just for the musicians, but for the backstage crew and every union member who working in the opera house. Hundreds of people.
You are hardly a victim. Better to blame the subways. You are in a large city and should plan for contingencies. That’s what responsible adults do.
The dreaded “too late – you’re punished – go watch the production on a bad TV in a small room” happened to me once. Unavoidably late. However I still don’t want latecomers admitted unless it’s to standing room at the very back. Last season they were letting people in during the overture (same at Carnegie – they should stop that pronto).
That’s always been the announced policy at the Met – glad they’re finally enforcing it. It’s UNBELIVABLY disruptive – especially in a Wagner opera – to have people crawling over you to get to their seats once the performance has begun. And with Wagner there are no obvious breaks in the music. And 120 people all coming in at once throughout the auditorium? Totally unworkable.
When I went to movie theater presentations of the Met, the picture quality was terrible. Grey, washed out, only approximately focused.
There are no “movie theater presentations at the Met.” There are movie theater presentations FROM the Met, so your complaint might better be addressed to the theater where you saw these shows. I attend Met in HD showings frequently, and the video and audio quality is excellent.
Gelb trying to blame others for his dismal failure in taking this one great opera house and destroying it. That he denounces the likes of Bing and Volpe. The 70% fill rate of the house is on him….
Gleb should ASPIRE to 70%.
Good news and not so good news from Lancaster Pennsylvania. Our Met HD series attracts a reasonable audience. Traviata was sold out; Florencia drew 30. (Two encores today will pull in a few more.)
I would estimate that 80% of the audience is over 60. From my seat high in the back row, I see “cue balls and Q-tips.’
We have funded bringing some teens and their music teachers to grand productions. Don’t know if the exposure took
I would also add that the theater owner, Pen Ketchum, believes in supporting opera.
I love the MET Live in HDs, but must acknowledge that when I got, at 58 I still feel like one of the younger people there.
When I lived in Prague I would go to the showings, too – even though Prague has a lot of good live opera. I particularly enjoyed the audience chuckling at an interview where someone was mangling Czech names.
Gelb and the Board have gone full woke Orwell.
I won’t go back.
Meanwhile they meet to sip a buttery Chardonnay on Martha’s Vineyard while the Met collapses and they somehow blame billionaires.
Can’t make it up
Was Orwell “woke?” I don’t know cuz I don’t know what “woke” means unless you can define it for me
We need arts patrons like the Esterházy to commission new classical works in-house at their big Hollywood or countryside mansions. (Ya wishful thinking I know) The talk of demise of classical music and opera has been going on since at least the times of Rossini when he met Wagner in 1860 and complained about the decline of bel canto singing. Every generation lamented the ‘dying of classical music’ and graying of classical music audience — it’s the same then as now.
What’s changed, IMO, is the worsening behavior of the classical music audience due to ignorance of the artform, not just in America.
I wasn’t a fan of the pre-MET Peter Gelb, but I really feel he gets a bum rap here on SD. He has tried to modernize an operatic repertoire that badly needs it, modernize productions, and adapt to modern communications technology. And whatever you think about “Live in HD,” it took a good bit of doing to get buy in from a bunch of unions that have never made electronic transmission of MET performances an easy or affordable proposition.
Also, opera houses always update productions for the times – nobody is doing productions from 1930s (that said, I hope John Dexter’s Dialogues of the Carmelites lasts a few more decades).
That Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos don’t care much for opera is not really his fault.
But there must be other donors who do and it’s his job to find them. He isn’t good at that based on the track record………..
Winter s coming for classical music in some parts of the world , spring in some other….
The movie theater model was very short sighted. Congratulations on cannibalizing your own audience. Time for new leadershiop at the MET.
How does it cannibalize the audience except a bit in the TriState area where I live? The people I know who go to the cinema were not going to the Opera House anyway. If you live in NY and prefer the cinema to the “real performance” then I don’t really rate you as an operalover. Nothing beats live voices and orchestra. The cinema evangelizes the Met and opera in general and is wonderful for people living elsewhere or perhaps nowhere near an opera company. Stokowski wasn’t cannibalizing the Philadelphia orchestra when he made Fantasia…………..
What a quitter. Just quit the Met already. You’re destroying it and tbh you have enough money.