1880
April 10: The Metropolitan Opera House Company, a group of six ambitious New York millionaires representing 62 stockholders, meets for the first time and decides to build an opera house.
1883
October 22: The Metropolitan Opera House opens at 39th Street and Broadway with a performance of Faust starring Italo Campanini and Christine Nilsson. For this Italian opera company—with orchestra, chorus, ballet, and costumes from Italy—everything is sung in Italian, even Carmen and Lohengrin.
1883
October 24: Polish soprano Marcella Sembrich has the great success of the first season, making her debut in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor.
1884
April 21: The first season loses half a million dollars. At a gala benefit for the General Manager Henry Abbey, Sembrich displays her extraordinary musical talents, singing, playing a violin concerto, and accompanying herself on the piano.
1884
The first of seven German seasons. Prices are slashed and everything is sung in German, even Don Giovanni and Rigoletto. General manager and conductor Leopold Damrosch dies after conducting five Walküres in seven days.
1886
December 1: The United States premiere of Tristan und Isolde is conducted by Anton Seidl with Lilli Lehmann and Albert Niemann. Die Meistersinger, Das Rheingold, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung are among the other U.S. premieres.
1889
March 4: The first Ring cycle in the western hemisphere begins. The season features eight cycles in New York, and the Met also takes the production on tour to Boston, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Chicago.
1891
December 14: Roméo et Juliette with Emma Eames and brothers Jean and Edouard De Reszke brings back the star system after the end of the German seasons, as the Board of Directors prefers French and Italian works.
1892
August 27: A fire destroys the interior of the opera house.
1893
November 27: The rebuilt opera house opens with Faust. Carmen is the most popular opera of the 1890s, with the provocative Emma Calvé singing the title role 137 times over six seasons.
1894
December 3: Francesco Tamagno and Victor Maurel, chosen by Verdi to create the roles of Otello and Iago at Otello’s 1887 world premiere at La Scala, bring their interpretations to the Met.
1895
February 4: Victor Maurel sings the title role in the United States premiere of Verdi’s Falstaff.
1895
November 18: Opening night inaugurates the first tri-lingual season, with works in Italian, German, and French.
1900
November 9: On tour in Los Angeles, Nellie Melba sings in the first Met performances of Puccini’s four-year-old La Bohème. To help the box office, she sometimes reappears after Mimì’s death to sing the mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor.
1901
February 4: Milka Ternina and Antonio Scotti appear in the United States premiere of Tosca. Scotti goes on to portray Scarpia 214 times, a Met record for performances of a leading role.
1901
High above the Met stage, music librarian Lionel Mapleson begins recording fragments of performances on his Edison cylinder machine—the first recordings anywhere of operatic performances.
1903
After renovation, the auditorium reopens with the famous red and gold design and the proscenium inscribed with the names of Gluck, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Gounod, and Beethoven.
1903
November 23: Enrico Caruso makes his debut as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto.
1903
December 24: Heinrich Conried defies the ban established by Wagner’s heirs and stages Parsifal for the first time outside Bayreuth. The opera is performed 12 times the first season and 27 the next, including a cross-country tour of 16 cities from Boston to Houston by way of California.
1903
Enrico Caruso’s tragic clown in Pagliacci is his most frequent role and one of the greatest attractions in Met history
1906
April 18: Hours after Caruso and Olive Fremstad sing Carmen on a Met tour to San Francisco, much of the city is destroyed by earthquake. No one from the Met is injured, and the company returns to New York to replace musical instruments and destroyed productions.
1907
January 22: Salome has its United States premiere and so offends New York society that it is banned at the Met for 26 seasons.
1907
February 11: Giacomo Puccini comes to New York for the Met premiere of Madama Butterfly with Caruso, Geraldine Farrar, and Louise Homer. On Broadway, he attends a performance of David Belasco’s The Girl of the Golden West.
1907
November 20: Feodor Chaliapin offends audiences and critics by stripping to the waist in the title role of Boito’s Mefistofele.
1908
January 1: Gustav Mahler makes his New York debut leading Tristan und Isolde with Olive Fremstad.
1908
November 16: Arturo Toscanini makes his Met debut conducting Emmy Destinn as Aida. For three seasons, both Toscanini and Mahler lead Met performances.
1910
January 12, 13: Experimental live broadcasts of portions of Tosca, Cavalleria Rusticana, and Pagliacci are transmitted from the roof of the opera house and reach a few hundred listeners as far away as Newark.
1910
February 28: The Met engages Anna Pavlova, who transforms dance in America.
1910
March 5: Mahler leads the United States premiere of The Queen of Spades, the first Russian opera at the Met (but sung in German).
1910
March 18: Frederick Converse’s one-act The Pipe of Desire is the first American opera and the first opera in English at the Met. It has just three performances.
1910
December 10: Puccini returns for the world premiere of La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) with Toscanini, Caruso, Destinn, and Pasquale Amato. U nfortunately, not a note of the music is recorded.
1913
March 19: Toscanini leads the American premiere of Boris Godunov, sung in Italian.
1913
December 9: The company presents the United States premiere of Der Rosenkavalier.
1917
April 6: The United States declares war on Germany. Wagner and all other performances in German are dropped.
1918
November 15: Trained in America, her only stage experience in vaudeville, Rosa Ponselle makes her operatic debut on opening night, singing opposite Caruso in the Met premiere of La Forza del Destino.
1918
December 14: The Met’s second Puccini world premiere, Il Trittico, features Claudia Muzio in Il Tabarro, Geraldine Farrar in Suor Angelica, and Giuseppe De Luca and Florence Easton in Gianni Schicchi.
1920
February 19: A new production of Parsifal, sung in English, brings Wagner back to the repertory. 1920 December 24: La Juive is Caruso’s 863rd—and last—performance at the Met.
1921
General manager Giulio Gatti- Casazza looks to new stars to follow Caruso: Beniamino Gigli, Amelita Galli-Curci, Chaliapin, and Titta Ruffo.
1921
November 11: Maria Jeritza debuts as Marietta in the American premiere of Die Tote Stadt and is soon a sensation singing Tosca’s “Vissi d’arte” in a prone position.
1925
January 2: Following a season of small roles, American baritone Lawrence Tibbett sings Ford in Falstaff and becomes an overnight sensation.
1926
November 16: Maria Jeritza and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi star in the U .S. premiere of Turandot. Despite the largest forces ever to appear on the Met stage—650 soloists, chorus, chorus school, ballet, stage musicians, and supers—the production is not a success and lasts only four seasons.
1927
November 16: With her flawless vocalism, Rosa Ponselle sets a new standard in the title role of Norma.
1929
November 29: Ezio Pinza sings his first Don Giovanni, a portrayal that would become legendary.
1931
January 3: An unknown soprano from France, Lily Pons, makes her Met debut as Lucia, providing a much-needed boost to a box office suffering from the Depression.
1931
December 25: Hansel and Gretel is the Met’s first complete live opera broadcast. The broadcasts go on to become the longest running classical-music series in American radio history.
1932
January 28: Lawrence Tibbett sings the title role in the American premiere of Simon Boccanegra.
1933
January 7: In the world premiere of Gruenberg’s The Emperor Jones, Lawrence Tibbett has the title role, and the Hemsley Winfield Art and Dance Group is featured. Winfield is the first African-American soloist at the Met.
1933
May 17: Mrs. August Belmont is the first woman on the Board of Directors. In 1935, she founds the Metropolitan Opera Guild.
1935
February 2: With little experience outside Scandinavia, Kirsten Flagstad astounds audiences with her Sieglinde in Die Walküre.
1935
Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior appear for the first time together in Tristan und Isolde, turning it into one of the biggest box office attractions in New York theater history.
1935
December 16: Edward Johnson’s first season as General Manager begins with a new production of La Traviata for Lucrezia Bori.
1935
December 27: Rosa Ponselle’s Carmen delights the audience though she is panned by critics.
1936
March 29: After losing in the semifinal of the Met auditions, which become a national event on NBC radio this year, Risë Stevens goes to Europe to study.
1940
February 2: The new production of Le Nozze di Figaro sparks a renewed interest in Mozart’s works at the Met.
1940
March 10: A concert and excerpts from Pagliacci featuring Met artists are presented in a one-hour telecast from Radio City Music Hall.
1940
June 28: The Metropolitan Opera Company buys the opera house from the box holders, assuming responsibility for both producing opera and maintaining the house.
1941
December 7: In the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Madama Butterfly is dropped from the repertory. Wagner performances continue. “The Star-Spangled Banner” is sung before every performance.
1943
November 23: The Met opens its diamond jubilee season with Boris Godunov, “as tribute to our ally, the Soviet Union.”
1945
January 25: Richard Tucker makes his Met debut as Enzo in La Gioconda.
1947
June 5 & 6: Hansel and Gretel with Risë Stevens and Nadine Conner (General Manager Edward Johnson at right) is the first complete opera recording made in the U .S.
1947
Helen Traubel’s Brünnhilde anchors a new Ring cycle with scenery inspired by the Hudson Palisades.
1948
November 29: With four cameras in the auditorium, ABC televises the opening night Otello with Ramon Vinay, Licia Albanese, and Leonard Warren. Reception extends as far as Boston and Washington, DC, with an estimated 477,600 sets tuned in.
1949
February 4: With Fritz Reiner conducting, Ljuba Welitsch has a triumph in the title role of Salome.
1950
November 6: General Manager Rudolf Bing’s first opening night Don Carlo ushers in a new era of great singing and theatricality.
1950
November 17: Having auditioned for the new management in January, 21-year-old Roberta Peters makes a thrilling last-minute debut as Zerlina in Don Giovanni.
1950
December 20: Patrice Munsel steals the show as Adele in an English-language Die Fledermaus which has 31 performances in one season.
1951
December 28: Alfred Lunt directs Eleanor Steber, Blanche Thebom, Patrice Munsel, Richard Tucker, Frank Guarrera, John Brownlee, and Così fan tutte becomes a box office hit.
1952
December 11: Tyrone Guthrie’s production of Carmen, with Stevens and Tucker, is simulcast live in 31 movie theaters.
1953
February 14: American premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress.
1955
January 7: Marian Anderson becomes the first African-American singer to appear with the Met when she sings U lrica in Un Ballo in Maschera.
1955
January 31: Renata Tebaldi debuts opposite Mario Del Monaco and Leonard Warren in Otello.
1955
October 17: The Board of Directors and City Construction Coordinator Robert Moses resolve to cooperate to build a new opera house in the Lincoln Square area.
1956
November 25: Maria Callas makes her debut as Norma. She also appears on television in an excerpt from Tosca with George London.
1957
October 31: Karl Böhm leads a legendary performance of Don Giovanni with an ideal cast: Steber, Lisa Della Casa, Peters, Cesare Valletti, Cesare Siepi, Theodor Uppman, Fernando Corena, and Giorgio Tozzi.
1958
October 15: Dmitri Mitropoulos conducts the world premiere of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa.
1959
December 18: Birgit Nilsson debuts as Isolde and later sings with three ailing tenors, each only able to sing a single act.
1961
January 27: Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli (flanking Rudolf Bing) debut in Il Trovatore.
1961
November 16: Joan Sutherland has her Met debut as Lucia di Lammermoor.
1961
February 24: Turandot is finally successful, in Cecil Beaton’s production starring Nilsson, Corelli, and Anna Moffo, led by Leopold Stokowski.
1963
March 10: After 300 performances in small roles, James McCracken returns as Otello, the first of many leading roles.
1964
March 6: Leonard Bernstein conducts Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Falstaff.
1965
January 21: Rudolf Bing asks Marc Chagall if he “might be prepared to paint two extremely large murals for the new house.”
1966
April 11: A student matinee of La Fanciulla del West is the first performance in the new Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center. The acoustical trial is a triumph.
1966
April 16: The last Met performance in the old house. A few nights earlier, Zinka Milanov makes her farewell appearance in Andrea Chénier in a night of excitement and nostalgia.
1966
September 16: The new opera house opens with the world premiere of Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra, with libretto, sets, costumes, and direction by Zeffirelli. Leontyne Price and Justino Díaz sing the title roles, conducted by Thomas Schippers.
1966
The first Met season at Lincoln Center features nine new productions, including the Met premiere of Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, with Leonie R ysanek, Christa Ludwig, James King, Walter Berry, and designs by R obert O’Hearn (pictured), and the world premiere of Marvin David Levy’s Mourning Becomes Electra.
1967
January 20: Colin Davis conducts as Jon Vickers sings the title role of Peter Grimes.
1967
February 19: Chagall’s production of Die Zauberflöte opens.
1967
November 21: Herbert von Karajan makes his Met debut conducting and directing a new production of Die Walküre featuring Nilsson, Vickers, Gundula Janowitz, Ludwig, and Thomas Stewart.
1968
February 8: Montserrat Caballé, Tucker, and Sherrill Milnes perform in Luisa Miller.
1968
September 28: Plácido Domingo debuts as Maurizio opposite Renata Tebaldi in Adriana Lecouvreur.
1968
November 23: Luciano Pavarotti makes his Met debut in La Bohème with Mirella Freni.
1970
March 3: Marilyn Horne makes her debut as Adalgisa opposite Sutherland’s Norma.
1971
June 5: Twenty seven- year-old James Levine leads Tosca, his first Met performance.
1972
February 17: Pavarotti creates a sensation with his nine high Cs in Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment, opposite Sutherland in the title role.
1972
April 22: Bing’s Gala Farewell is televised.
1972
September 19: Bernstein leads Horne and McCracken in Goeran Gentele’s Carmen, designed by Josef Svoboda. Gentele, who had just assumed the position of General Manager, tragically dies in a car accident a few weeks prior to the premiere.
1972
December 17: The Queen of Spades is the first opera performed in its original Russian.
1973
October 22: Shirley Verrett sings both Cassandra and Dido in Les Troyens, led by Rafael Kubelik.
1975
April 7: Beverly Sills finally arrives at the Met, singing Pamira in The Siege of Corinth.
1975
May 29: The Met goes to Japan for the first time and performs La Traviata, Carmen, and La Bohème with Sutherland, Corelli, Robert Merrill, Dorothy Kirsten, Horne and McCracken. The Met will tour Japan again in 1988, 1993, 1997, 2001, and 2006.
1977
March 15: PBS inaugurates its “Live from the Met” series with a telecast of La Bohème, starring Pavarotti and Renata Scotto, with James Levine conducting.
1980
December 10: Postponed due to a labor dispute, the season finally opens with Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony, followed by the complete Lulu, both conducted by Levine.
1981
February 20: Parade, Les Mamelles de Tirésias, and L’Enfant et les Sortilèges are performed together in a new staging by Director of Production John Dexter, designed by David Hockney.
1981
December 14: Zeffirelli’s staging of La Bohème with Teresa Stratas and José Carreras premieres. It will become the most performed production in Met history.
1982
October 14: Levine leads Pavarotti in the Met premiere of Mozart’s Idomeneo, in a production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle.
1983
October 22: The Met celebrates its centennial with afternoon and evening galas, both televised.
1984
January 19: Rinaldo, the first Handel opera at the Met, stars Marilyn Horne and marks the debut of Samuel Ramey.
1985
February 6: Fifty years after the work’s world premiere, Porgy and Bess is presented for the first time at the Met.
1988
April 10: In a banner year for the National Council Auditions, finalists include Renée Fleming, Heidi Grant Murphy, Susan Graham, and Ben Heppner.
1988
October 6: Das Rheingold is James Levine’s 1,089th Met performance —breaking the conducting record previously held by Artur Bodanzky.
1990
June 18, 19, 20, 21: PBS televises the Met’s new Ring cycle, directed by Otto Schenk, on consecutive nights. James Levine conducts a cast that includes James Morris and Hildegard Behrens.
1990
September 24: Twenty-six years after starting backstage as a carpenter, Joseph Volpe ascends to the job of General Manager, a post he would hold for 16 years.
1991
April 30: James Levine leads the MET Orchestra on its first tour; the annual series of concerts in Carnegie Hall begins.
1991
December 19: The Met presents its first world premiere in 25 years: The Ghosts of Versailles.
1992
February 17: Rigoletto is tenor Charles Anthony’s 2,397th performance with the Met, a new record.
1995
October 2: Met Titles are introduced at the Opening Night performance of Otello.
1999
September 27: As Canio in Pagliacci, Plácido Domingo sings his 18th Metropolitan Opera opening night, breaking the record set by Caruso 79 years before.
2001
September 22: The Met joins the World Trade Center relief effort, raising funds with a special performance that is televised to an audience on Lincoln Center Plaza.
2002
February 14: Fifty-five years after the Met first announced its plans to produce Prokofiev’s War and Peace, Valery Gergiev conducts a co-production of the Met and the Kirov Opera.
2006
September 25: James Levine conducts Anthony Minghella’s striking production of Madama Butterfly for the opening of the season, Peter Gelb’s first as General Manager. The performance is transmitted live to audiences in Times Square. A few days earlier, the public attends the final dress rehearsal as part of a free Open House.
2006
December 30: A matinee performance of The Magic Flute launches The Met: Live in HD, the company’s series of live performance transmissions to movie theaters internationally. This season, the Met also broadcasts performances on SIRIUS Satellite Radio.
2008
September 22: Renée Fleming becomes the first woman to headline an Opening Night Gala, singing an act each from La Traviata, Manon, and Capriccio.
2008
October 13: The company premiere of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic marks the Met debut of one of today’s leading composers, part of the Met’s renewed commitment to presenting contemporary masterpieces.
Written by Met Archivist Robert Tuggle.