Today marks the 129th anniversary of the opening of the original Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. A small, very wealthy group of New Yorkers bankrolled the home of the city’s premier opera company in 1883.
The original opera house was designed by J. Cleaveland Cady and was located at 1411 Broadway, from 39th Street to 40th Street. In its first twenty years the building required a major rebuild following a fire and had a major interior redesign that gave it much of the look that would last for almost 70 years. The “Old Met” could seat up to 3,625 opera patrons. While it was a great place for watching the opera, with excellent acoustics, the “behind the scenes” facilities were always lacking (you could frequently see parts of sets leaning against the outside of the building). Over the years the opera considered moving to several different locations until, finally, in the 1960’s the opportunity arose to become part of the new Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
The Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center opened in time for the 1966-1967 opera season and has been the venue for thousands of performances since then. When the opera isn’t performing, the theater is frequently used for other purposes, including the “Spring season” of the American Ballet Theatre. It even hosted the MTV Video Music Awards in 1999 and 2001.
Left without its primary occupant, the old Metropolitan Opera House was demolished in 1967, replaced in 1970 by a 40-story office building known as 1411 Broadway.
