Metropolitan Opera House
80 Columbus Avenue | also 30 Lincoln Center Plaza, 136 West 65th Street, 60 Columbus Avenue | Lincoln Square | built 1964
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1957
Wrecking crews arrive in San Juan Hill and Lincoln Square to clear the site
The neighborhoods around the future Lincoln Center, including the ground the opera house now occupies, were tenements, shops and light industry, with San Juan Hill an enclave of tenements, music halls and theaters, mostly African-American. After City Planning Commission meetings where opponents argued that too little thought was being given to relocating 7,000 families and hundreds of small businesses, the wrecking ball arrived in 1957. A New York Times article in April 1956 had announced that an integrated performing arts center was in planning. This entry concerns earlier buildings on the site.
Source: Ephemeral New York
- 1964
Construction delays earn the opera house site the nickname 'Lake Bing'
Delays finishing the neighboring New York State Theater in time for the 1964 World's Fair push back work on the opera house, and the flooded excavation pit earns the nickname 'Lake Bing,' after Metropolitan Opera general manager Rudolf Bing. Architect Wallace K. Harrison had already gone through forty-three design revisions to reconcile the Met's preference for a traditional look with the wishes of Lincoln Center's other architects.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1966
The Metropolitan Opera opens its Lincoln Center house with Antony and Cleopatra
Wallace Harrison's opera house opened with Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, starring soprano Leontyne Price and conducted by Thomas Schippers. The auditorium seats 3,794 with 245 standing places, and the stage has seven hydraulic elevators, three slipstages and a 60-foot turntable. It is the only Lincoln Center auditorium that has not been rebuilt because of acoustic problems.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1966
Austria's gift of Lobmeyr chandeliers gives the new house its space-age lighting
The Viennese firm Lobmeyr made the Met's glass chandeliers, 11 for the lobby and 21 for the auditorium, to designs by Hans Harald Rath, and they were commissioned only for the new house. Architect Wallace K. Harrison supplied Rath with space-age references, including a book on cosmology. The lighting was an official gift from Austria to the United States, acknowledging Marshall Plan aid after the Second World War.
Source: wallpaper.com
- 1966
The Met previews its new house with a student performance
Before its official opening, the new Metropolitan Opera House hosts a preview performance of Puccini's La fanciulla del West for an audience of 3,000 high school students. The program also includes the national anthem and sound tests, a trial run for the hall ahead of its formal debut later that year.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1986
Baryshnikov and Nureyev reunite for a benefit gala
Dancers Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev perform together at the Metropolitan Opera House for a benefit gala, their first joint performance in more than a decade. A month later, comedian Robin Williams tapes a set at the house for an HBO special, part of a run of uses beyond the Met's own opera season.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1994
Joseph Volpe dismisses soprano Kathleen Battle from a Met production for unprofessional conduct
In February 1994, during rehearsals for La fille du regiment, general manager Joseph Volpe dismissed Kathleen Battle from the production, citing unprofessional actions, and cancelled all future offers to her. Reports said she had harshly criticized fellow performers and demanded that they not look at her. Time magazine reported that the cast applauded when told of the firing during rehearsal. She did not return to sing at the Met until a concert of spirituals in November 2016.
“Volpe responded by dismissing Battle from the production for "unprofessional actions" during rehearsals.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
Britney Spears performs with a live python at the MTV Video Music Awards
The MTV Video Music Awards came to the Met on September 6, 2001, with Jamie Foxx hosting. Britney Spears premiered 'I'm a Slave 4 U' with live animals, among them an albino python draped across her shoulders, and Michael Jackson appeared as a surprise at the end of the *NSYNC set. The World Trade Center towers in Limp Bizkit's winning video were destroyed five days later.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2008
The chandeliers are taken down and cleaned for the first time since 1966
In 2008 the Met's Lobmeyr chandeliers were taken down for a thorough cleaning, their first since the house opened in 1966. Leonid Rath, grandson of the designer, recalled that the staff, including stagehands, wanted to be sure the chandeliers would be handled with suitable care. He said the episode showed how beloved the fixtures had become.
Source: wallpaper.com
- 2009
The Met puts up its Chagall murals as collateral for a loan
Two large murals by Marc Chagall, The Sources of Music and The Triumph of Music, hang in the lobby behind the building's five-arched travertine facade. In 2009 the Met used them as collateral for a long-term loan; once valued at about $20 million, they were later appraised by Sotheby's at $55 million. The lobby and auditorium are also lit by crystal chandeliers that Austria gave in gratitude after World War II.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2021
Fire Shut Up in My Bones opens the season as the Met's first opera by a Black composer
After the pandemic closure, the Met opened its 2021-22 season on September 27, 2021 with Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones. No opera by an African-American composer had been performed at the Met since its founding in 1883. General manager Peter Gelb said that the Black Lives Matter movement shaped his choice to give the piece the opening slot, and a recording later won a Grammy.
“It was the first opera by an African-American composer to be performed at the Metropolitan Opera since its founding in 1883.”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center)Wikipedia
- The pre-Lincoln Center Metropolitan Opera HouseEphemeral New York
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