$20 Tickets at the Met

Earth to Metropolitan Opera! Your audience is dying off!

Seriously though, the new general director at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera is perfectly aware of that. So Peter Gelb is handing out $20 tickets. $20 for a night at the Metropolitan Opera. Here’s how Robin Pogrebin describes the offer.

Last week, the opera house announced that it would sell 200 seats for every weeknight performance for just $20 each. Tickets for these seats, which would normally sell for $100, go on sale two hours before curtain time. On Tuesday, the day of the announcement, 160 tickets were sold in 20 minutes. The remaining 40 were sold out by 7:10 p.m.

Here in Seattle, we wish the Metropolitan well. The general director of Seattle Opera, Speight Jenkins,
is indefatigable in working to build the audience. For the last 20 years he has done anything, everything to sell opera to Seattle.

You can see the results in the flesh on any night at the newly refurbished McCaw Hall. The audience may be dying off at the Met, but not in Seattle. There are a lot of young things parading around wearing dresses off the shoulder. Which is as it should be.

But every time my eyes rest lightly on one of these young things, I thank Speight. He’s the guy, ably assisted by the people at Seattle Opera, that did the heavy lifting.

Metropolitan Opera, please copy.