(New York, NY, September 5, 2007)—On the heels of a notably strong box office opening, the Metropolitan Opera launches its 2007-08 season with a wide range of public outreach events and programs. For the second year in a row, the Met presents its groundbreaking opening-night relay to Times Square: on Monday, September 24, the gala performance of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor will be transmitted live onto giant outdoor screens in Times Square and Lincoln Center’s Josie Robertson Plaza. The new production, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and directed by Tony winner Mary Zimmerman, stars Natalie Dessay and Marcello Giordani. The performance will also be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera on Sirius Satellite Radio (Channel 85) and streamed live from the Met’s website, www.metopera.org.
The Met will host the first of the season’s three free Open Houses on Thursday, September 20, for the final dress rehearsal of Lucia di Lammermoor. The Open House and Opening Night Gala performance are dedicated to the memory of the late Beverly Sills. The Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met will debut its first solo exhibition on September 19, with Guillermo Kuitca: Stage Fright, showcasing opera-inspired works by the world-renowned Argentine artist. And to kick off the season opening, a widespread outdoor transit ad campaign begins this week, promoting the Met’s new season with images of Lucia di Lammermoor on the sides of buses, at subway entrances, and hanging from lampposts.
One of the company’s most important and successful new audience development initiatives, the Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman Rush Ticket program, continues in the 2007-08 season and expands to include all standard-priced, non-gala performances from Mondays through Thursdays, beginning on September 25 with the first performance of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. The program offers 200 Orchestra-level seats – normally priced at $100 per ticket – for $20 per ticket, two hours before curtain on the day of the performance. The tickets, limited to two per person, are available on a first-come, first-served basis. In addition, a new provision this season sets aside 50 of the rush tickets for senior citizens (65 years or older), allowing them to purchase by phone or on the Met’s website, beginning at noon each day, and avoid having to wait in line. The senior tickets are then held at the Met’s box office for pick-up with identification and are available any time before curtain on the day of the performance.
“We’re determined to keep opera in the public eye,” said Peter Gelb, Met General Manager. “That’s what these initiatives are meant to achieve.”
Strong Box Office Sales
The Met’s box office opened on August 19, and the first-day receipts set a record by topping $2 million, a 25% increase from last year’s receipts. Pre-season ticket sales have already passed 50% capacity. This year’s sales build on the success of last season, when the Met had its first box office upturn in 5 years, including 88 sold-out performances.
Times Square and Lincoln Center Live Relays
The Met’s Opening Night Gala performance of Lucia di Lammermoor will be held on Monday, September 24, at 6:30 p.m. Last year, Anthony Minghella’s new production of Madama Butterfly made international headlines when it was presented on three screens in Times Square. Lucia di Lammermoor will be seen on at least three screens: Panasonic’s AstroVision screen, Toys “R” Us, and Budweiser LED. Approximately 1,500 seats will be available for the public on a first-come first-served basis, with additional standing room provided. The Times Square relay is free, and tickets are not required.
A simultaneous outdoor relay of the performance will be presented on Lincoln Center’s Josie Robertson Plaza, drawing an additional potential audience of 2,000. Advance tickets are required for attendance to the broadcast in Lincoln Center Plaza and will be available at the Met box office beginning at 12 noon on Sunday, September 23. Tickets are available on a first-come first-served basis, free of charge, with a limit of two tickets per person.
The live relays at Lincoln Center and in Times Square are made possible with leadership support from Mr. and Mrs. Sid R. Bass, the Metropolitan Opera Guild, and Panasonic Corporation of America, with additional support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional services for the Plazacast are being provided by All Mobile Video and Scharff Weisberg.
For the seventh consecutive year, the Met’s Opening Night Gala is sponsored by Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank is also providing additional leadership support for the simultaneous live transmissions of the opening night performance on the Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center and in Times Square. This is the fourth time that Deutsche Bank has supported live Met transmissions free to the public since 2001. Deutsche Bank has been a leading corporate partner of the Met for almost twenty-five years and has supported a wide variety of projects that include major sponsorships of galas, new productions and revivals. Deutsche Bank Chairman and CEO Dr. Josef Ackermann has served as an Advisory Director to the Met since 2002.
Panasonic is donating up to four hours of time on the AstroVision screen, located at One Times Square at 43rd Street, for the Met broadcast and is providing state-of-the-art audio equipment between 43rd and 44th Streets. The donation is part of a larger partnership of Panasonic and the Met that includes the installation of state-of-the-art high definition (HD) television screens throughout the Metropolitan Opera House, including in List Hall, and the donation of five 1080i HD projectors to New York City schools to support the Met's partnership with the New York City Department of Education.
“The Met’s live Plaza Cast and Times Square relay add a different dimension to attracting new audiences to the art form of opera,” said Mrs. Mercedes Bass. “By opening the Met’s doors to new audiences and providing more opportunities to the public, we are well on our way to creating a whole new generation of fans. I am thrilled to be supporting the live relays and the Met during this exciting time in the company’s history.”
“Our role as lead sponsor of Opening Night affords us the opportunity to share with all New Yorkers the wonderful experience of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor,” said Gary Hattem, President, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation. “On opening night, the Met is truly center stage in the life of our city and we could not be more pleased that we helped make this possible.”
“Panasonic places a high value on our relationship with the Metropolitan Opera and the opportunity to join in bringing the stunning production of Lucia di Lammermoor to a much wider audience in Times Square,” said Bob Greenberg, Vice President, Brand Marketing, Panasonic Corporation of North America. “We are very pleased that our High Definition and digital video technologies are making superb operatic masterpieces accessible to so many more people.”
“This exciting opportunity enables the Guild to continue its long-standing support of the Metropolitan Opera,” said David A. Dik, Managing Director of the Metropolitan Opera Guild. “In combination with our partnership this year involving the Met and New York City Department of Education to provide live HD broadcasts in five New York City Public Schools, more than ever, the operatic art form is being made available to audiences of all ages and backgrounds.”
Open House Events
Following up on the tremendous popular success of its inaugural Open Houses last season, the Met is expanding this program to include more free Open Houses during the 2007-08 season. Each event includes the final dress rehearsal of a new Met production, beginning on Thursday, September 20, with the final dress rehearsal of Lucia di Lammermoor. The rehearsal begins at 11:00 a.m., and doors open at 10:00 a.m. so that audiences can enjoy special exhibits and demonstrations that will be featured as part of the event.
Tickets for the Lucia di Lammermoor Open House, which are limited to two per person, can be reserved via the Met’s website or by phone beginning at 10 a.m. on Monday, September 17. After reserving tickets, customers have until Tuesday, September 18, at 8 p.m. to pick up their tickets at the box office. For further ticket information, call 212-362-6000, or visit the Met web site at www.metopera.org.
The second Open House of the season takes place on Friday, December 21, at the dress rehearsal of the Met’s Holiday Series presentation of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. Director Richard Jones’s new staging of the classic fairy tale features Christine Schäfer and Alice Coote as the title characters and Philip Langridge as the Witch, with Vladimir Jurowski on the podium. The season’s final Open House is on Friday, April 18, at the final dress rehearsal of Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment. Natalie Dessay also stars in this new production, opposite Juan Diego Flórez, directed by Laurent Pelly and conducted by Marco Armiliato. Details about the Dec. 21 and Apr. 18 Open House events will be released at a later date.
The Open House on September 20 is underwritten by Dr. Agnes Varis, a Managing Director on the Met Opera Board, and her husband, Karl Leichtman, in memory of Beverly Sills. In addition, Dr. Varis and Mr. Leichtman also underwrite the transit advertising campaign and the Rush Ticket program. Dr. Varis said, “It is so important to bring a broader public to the Met and to opera, and Karl and I are proud to be a part of making this possible. The Open House is a perfect opportunity to welcome everyone to the new season, and the advertising campaign raises awareness of the Met for people who have never been to the opera and creates excitement for the loyal fans.”
Transit Advertising Campaign
Inaugurated last year as part of the Metropolitan Opera’s efforts to reach a broader audience, the company will renew its New York City-wide transit advertising campaign to promote the opening of its 2007-08 season. The $500,000 campaign began Labor Day weekend and includes higher-visibility media than last year. In the ads, Ms. Dessay is featured as Donizetti’s tragic heroine in a series of portraits created in a London studio by photographer Lee Broomfield and the Met.
The potential number of times people will be exposed to the Met’s individual media postings each day during the initial four-week campaign period (total ad impressions) is 500 million. The new campaign will be seen at subway entrances and inside station platforms, on the sides and backs of MTA buses, at bus shelters, and on telephone kiosks. The majority of the campaign’s imprint will be in the Midtown, Upper West Side, and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan, with additional coverage in select locations downtown and in Brooklyn.
Gallery Met: Guillermo Kuitca: Stage Fright
Images from theater and opera have played a prominent role in Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca’s art since the 1980s. The Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met’s first exhibition of the 2007-08 season, Guillermo Kuitca: Stage Fright, captures the vivid and dramatic experience of being in the theater – either in the audience or on the stage. It is the first time the gallery is presenting an exhibition by an individual artist. A collection of Kuitca’s abstract works on paper, titled 32 Seating Plans, was created for the Met’s exhibition and inspired by the seating charts of famous opera houses and theaters around the world, including the Opéra Bastille, Palais Garnier, Teatro Colón, La Scala, Covent Garden, and the Metropolitan Opera. A multiple-part suite of new works on paper, titled The Flying Dutchman, will also be exhibited. These drawings were created from Kuitca’s set design for Wagner’s opera, which was conducted by Charles Dutoit at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, in July 2003. Stage Fright opens on September 19 and runs until November 1. Gallery Met is located in the south side of the lobby of the opera house and is open to the public, free of charge.
Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman Rush Ticket Program
In its first season last year, the Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman Rush Ticket program was sold out (98% of 20,000 tickets), with tickets often gone within the first hour they became available. Out of the participants who responded to a survey, 32% had never attended the Met before. Of these first-time attendees, 44% were 30 years old or younger.
Last season, the program did not include performances for which $100 tickets had already been sold out. This season, all rush tickets have been set aside in advance. Only galas, weekends, and other performances with elevated ticket prices are not part of the program.
About the Met
Under the leadership of General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine, the Met has a series of bold initiatives underway that are designed to broaden its audience and revitalize the company’s repertory. The Met has made a commitment to presenting modern masterpieces alongside the classic repertory, with highly theatrical productions featuring the greatest opera stars in the world.
Seven new productions will debut at the Met in 2007-08, the most new productions the Met has presented in one season in 40 years. In addition to Lucia di Lammermoor, new productions this season are Verdi’s Macbeth, conducted by James Levine, directed by Adrian Noble; Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, conducted by Louis Langrée, directed by Stephen Wadsworth; Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, directed by Richard Jones; Britten’s Peter Grimes, conducted by Donald Runnicles, directed by John Doyle; Philip Glass’s Satyagraha in its Met premiere, conducted by Dante Anzolini, directed by Phelim McDermott; and Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment, conducted by Marco Armiliato, directed by Laurent Pelly.
The company has recently formed a groundbreaking commissioning program in partnership with New York’s Lincoln Center Theater, to provide renowned composers and playwrights with the resources to create and develop new works at the Met and at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater.
Building on its 76-year-old international radio broadcast history – heard over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network – the Met now uses advanced media distribution platforms and state-of-the-art technology to attract new audiences and reach millions of opera fans around the world. “Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD,” the company’s series of live performance transmissions, shown in high definition (HD) in movie theaters around the world, will expand from six to eight opera transmissions in 2007-08, beginning with Roméo et Juliette on December 15. Global distribution of the series will triple in 2007-08 to reach 1 million audience members in over 700 participating venues in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. These performances will subsequently air on PBS, and a selection of these HD performances will be available on DVD through a partnership with EMI Classics beginning in 2008. Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS Satellite Radio (Channel 85) is a subscription-based audio service broadcasting both live and rare historical performances. The Met also presents free live audio streaming of performances on it website once every week during the opera season with support from RealNetworks®.
In addition to the Open House dress rehearsals, Rush Tickets, and Gallery Met, the Met’s other audience development initiatives include reduced ticket prices and an annual Holiday Series for families. Hansel and Gretel opens on December 24 as this season’s special presentation.