This Day in New York History (Metropolitan Opera Opens)

October 22, 1883—New York's Metropolitan Opera opened with a performance of Gounod’s Faust, starting as a meeting place for Gotham’s new-money class but swiftly becoming an established symbol of culture in its own right.

The nouveau riche of the Gilded Age were like today’s starlets with implants—they’d paid a lot for what they had and, by George, they were going to display every bit of it. One of my earlier posts discussed one occasion for this—the ultra-extravagant Vanderbilt fancy-dress ball, also in 1883.

Another such event was the founding of the Met. It all came about because New York’s millionaires (back when the term meant something) found themselves frozen out of New York’s Academy of Music, located near Union Square. The Academy’s old-line Knickerbocker elite were in no mood to accommodate the rich new upstarts, who regarded their offer of 26 additional boxes to be too little, too late. So the nouveau riche built their own property.

The first Metropolitan Opera House—one where it stood until it moved into its present quarters at Lincoln Center in 1966—was located at Broadway and 39th Street. Fashions could and did change over the years in terms of the repertoire (sometimes in Italian, sometimes in German, but a couple of things remained constant: 1) the constellation of talent that came to the house, and 2) the inadequacy of that venue as an institution for musical theater. (In the latter case, the acoustics were fine—it was limited rehearsal and storage space, not to mention cramped dressing rooms, that represented the problem.)

The latter problem was alleviated by the move to the organization's current home, in Lincoln Center, in 1966. But, whether on 39th Street or further uptown, the talent has remained constant, with the stage serving as home over the years to the likes of Enrico Caruso, Lawrence Tibbett, Maria Callas, Marian Anderson, Joan Sutherland, Renee Fleming, and "The Three Tenors"—Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Contreras. Plus, of course, my favorite—the late great baritone Robert Merrill, who for more than three decades thrilled Yankee fans such as myself with his thrilling renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” on opening day at the stadium.