Metropolitan Opera history

The Metropolitan Opera Company became the official producing entity in 1908.

The high water mark during this affluent period for the Metropolitan Opera was the 1927-28 season, when the company realized a profit of $141,000, with subscription revenues that totaled $55,000 per week.

For 20 years, until the stock market crash of 1929, the Metropolitan Opera would enjoy a period of artistic achievement and financial stability.

The first radio broadcast of a Met opera, Hansel und Gretel, occurred on Christmas Day 1931, and was carried by the largest network of stations ever assembled at the time.

Establishment of Metropolitan Opera Association: 1932

By the 1933-34 season the Saturday afternoon broadcasts had found a sponsor, Lucky Strike Cigarettes.

By the spring of 1935, the Metropolitan Opera had, in its fifty-year history, established itself as not only the nation's foremost opera company, but one of the leading opera companies of the world.

In the spring of 1936, the Guild hired Mary Ellis Peltz, a “gifted walking encyclopedia of opera” in Mrs.

On March 19, 1937, the Guild presented its first student matinee at the Met: Verdi's Aida, with Elisabeth Rethberg in the title role.

1938: Threatened with demolition, the theater is saved by $1 million in gifts from the public10

Then in the summer of 1939 the Opera Association was informed that a number of boxholders that comprised the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company refused to pay the annual assessment levied on their shares.

Although it was far from healthy, the Metropolitan Opera saw its income steadily increase in the late 1930s, enough to ward off the very real danger of collapse as it waited for the United States economy to recover. Therefore, the lease on the opera house would not be renewed when it expired on May 31, 1940, and the property would be put up for sale.

Another public appeal for money was made in 1943-44, but with the end of the war and the resumption of touring and increased ticket sales, the Metropolitan Opera was able to post a modest $6,000 profit.

But in September 1965, the newly formed New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission included the opera house on its first list of proposed designated landmarks.

But the Metropolitan Opera Association sued (eventually winning) and serious preservation efforts were terminated in August 1966.

Banker George S. Moore became president of the organization in 1967 and began to put the Metropolitan Opera on a sound financial footing.

In 1970, the World Apparel Center was built on the site.

James Levine Levine made his Met debut in 1971 with Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca.

1977: First PBS telecast of a Metropolitan Opera production is aired.

Also in 1990 the Metropolitan Opera Association was solvent enough to complete 82 capital projects at a cost of $15 million.