The Metropolitan Opera House was an

opera house An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets. While some venues are constructed specifically fo ...

located at 1411 Broadway in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Opened in 1883 and demolished in 1967, it was the first home of the

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is opera ...

Company.

History

The Metropolitan Opera Company was founded in 1883. The Metropolitan Opera House (also known as "the old Met"), opened on October 22, 1883, with a performance of '' Faust''. It was located at 1411 Broadway, occupying the whole block between West 39th Street and West 40th Street on the west side of the street in the Garment District of

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildi ...

. Nicknamed "The Yellow Brick Brewery" for its industrial looking exterior, the original Metropolitan Opera House was designed by J. Cleaveland Cady. On August 27, 1892, the nine-year-old theater was gutted by fire. The 1892−93 season was canceled while the opera house was rebuilt along its original lines. During that season, the Vaudeville Club, which eventually became the

Metropolitan Opera Club The Metropolitan Opera Club is a private social club within the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Founded in 1893 and incorporated in 1899, the club maintains its own dining room (designed by Angelo Donghia and later renovated by Peter Pe ...

, was founded and hosted entertainment in the undamaged portions of the house. In 1903, architects

Carrère and Hastings Carrère and Hastings, the firm of John Merven Carrère ( ; November 9, 1858 – March 1, 1911) and Thomas Hastings (March 11, 1860 – October 22, 1929), was one of the outstanding American Beaux-Arts architecture firms. Located in New York City ...

extensively redesigned the interior of the opera house. The familiar golden auditorium with its sunburst chandelier, and curved proscenium inscribed with the names of six composers (

Gluck Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he ...

, Mozart,

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

, Wagner, Gounod and Verdi), dates from this time. The first of the Met's signature gold damask stage curtains was installed in 1906, completing the look that the old Metropolitan Opera House maintained until its closing. Metropolitan Opera House program cover 1935

Metropolitan Opera House program cover 1935

In 1940, ownership of the opera house shifted from the wealthy families who occupied the theater's boxes to the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association. At this time the last major change to the auditorium's interior was completed. The second tier of privately held boxes (the "grand tier") was converted into standard row seating. This enlarged the seating capacity and left only the first tier of boxes from the "golden horseshoe" of the opera house's origins as a showplace for New York society. The Met had a seating capacity of 3,625 with 224 standing room places. While the theater was noted for its excellent acoustics and elegant interior, as early as the 1900s the backstage facilities were deemed to be severely inadequate for a large opera company. Scenery and sets were a regular sight leaning against the building exterior on 39th Street where crews had to shift them between performances. Various plans were put forward over the years to build a new home for the company and designs for new opera houses were created by various architects including Joseph Urban. Proposed new locations included Columbus Circle and what is now Rockefeller Center, but none of these plans came to fruition. Only with the development of

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...

on New York's Upper West Side did the Met finally have the opportunity to build a modern opera house. The Metropolitan Opera said goodbye to its old house on April 16, 1966, with a sentimental gala farewell performance featuring nearly all of the company's current leading artists. Long-time Met star soprano Zinka Milanov made her last Met appearance that night, and among the many invited guests was soprano Anna Case, who had made her debut at the house in 1909. The final performance at the opera house was given not by the Met, but by the Bolshoi Ballet, which concluded a short run of appearances on May 8, 1966. The theater was purchased by

Jack D. Weiler Jack D. Weiler (1904–1995) was an American real estate developer and philanthropist. Biography Weiler was born to a poor Jewish family in Svitskoy, Russian Empire, the seventh of ten children. His father, Faivel, was a rabbi and Talmudic schola ...

and despite a campaign to preserve the theater, it failed to obtain landmark status and the old Met was razed in 1967. It was replaced by a 40-story office tower, 1411 Broadway, intended to provide a steady income for the opera company. Designed by

Irwin S. Chanin Irwin Salmon Chanin (October 29, 1891 – February 24, 1988) was an American architect and real estate developer, best known for designing several Art Deco towers and Broadway theaters. Biography Irwin Chanin was born to a Jewish family, the son ...

and completed in 1970, the building was later sold by the Metropolitan Opera and today it is owned by 1411 TrizecHahn-Swig LLC, a partnership of the TrizecHahn and Swig real estate companies. Since 1966, the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center has been home to the Metropolitan Opera.

References

Notes Bibliography * Mayer, Martin. ''The Met: One Hundred Years of Grand Opera''. 1983. Thames and Hudson. London.

External links

*
Metropolitan Opera House interior photo 1966
''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy ...

'' magazine {{Authority control Music venues completed in 1883 Buildings and structures demolished in 1967 1966 disestablishments in New York (state) Former music venues in New York City Metropolitan Opera Opera houses in New York City Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan Carrère and Hastings buildings Theatres completed in 1883 Broadway (Manhattan) Midtown Manhattan 1883 establishments in New York (state)

History

Further reading

References

External links