frogs, she has been a draw at the box office at the met. The thing is, opera isnt selling as well anymore, but if you look at The Merry Widow versus other operas that she wasnt in, yeah she brought in money!
This is not at all accurate. First off, she hasn't been a draw for years....ANYWHERE (perhaps her Rusalka of roughly 6 years ago was the closest she's had to recent success). Her Armidas were epic failures as were her Desdimonas and subsequent Rusalkas. Merry Widow was not the success you claim it is and any achievement it may have had was based upon it being a new production. With that said, Netrebko in Macbeth and Kaufmann in Carmen (who ended up canceling his run) did much better business as did the bad press plaqued "Klinghoffer" this season.
As to your second point, look at opera houses around the world. BSO and Covent Garden sell around 80% to give two examples and the Salzburg and festival in Aix sell at near capacity.
Once again: you don't know what you're talking about.
Updated On: 4/2/15 at 12:11 AM