October 22
THE MET DAY
New York City’s nouveau riche built their own opera house on Broadway in Manhattan, staging its first performance on this day in 1883. The new socialites now had a theater where they could have opera boxes. Unlike the old Academy of Music, where the box seats were few and the likes of the Vanderbilts were unwelcome, the new structure had three levels of thirty-six boxes ... more than the number of millionaires in New York City, old or new. The lowest level became known as the ‘diamond horseshoe’. The Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Opera House had free opera boxes for all performances.
The Metropolitan Opera House was designed by J. Cleaveland Cady. A yellow-brick building, its interior, with red velvet and gold accents, was much more ornate than the exterior. Inside, it was truly designed for the enjoyment of millionaires.
When the curtains parted on this first night, Italian tenor Italo Campanini and Swedish soprano Christine Nilsson starred in Charles Gounod’s Faust. Orchestra-seat ticket holders paid $6 admission.
The Met remained at the Broadway between 39th and 40th Streets location until 1966, when a 3,700 seat, 14-story opera house was built in NYC’s Lincoln Memorial Center for the Performing Arts ... the present home of the venerable Metropolitan Opera House.
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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