Metropolitan Opera's money crunch

The Met Opera Turns to Saudi Arabia to Help Solve Its Financial Woes

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/arts/music/met-opera-saudi-arabia-finances.html?unlocked_article_code=1.jE8.Waxd.lmtL8N9y4WfG&smid=nytcore-android-share

Broadway producers must be drooling at the thought of Saudi money. Feels like only a matter of time. (And that press/social media cycle will be a blast………….)

As for the naming rights, given that it’s the only hall at Lincoln Center that doesn’t bear the name of a donor, I get why he’s doing it. Let’s not go crazy, though (eg. don’t get yourself into a “Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage” situation). If Avery Fisher Hall could get renamed for a mere $100 mil a decade ago, he shouldn’t accept less than half a bil.

Updated On: 9/5/25 at 09:49 AM

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "Broadway producers must be drooling at the thought of Saudi money. Feels like only a matter of time. (And that press/social media cycle will be a blast………….)”

Michael Cassel and Liz Coops have already made moves in the region, but I’m sure others will be looking to get in on the action. The runs have been very short so the money must be good by comparison.

rosscoe(au) said: "I would fly in a moments notice if they remounted that production of the Ring Cycle with what they called the machine. That looked spectacular."

Oh it....did not work. Dramatically, or mechanically. it was incredibly ambitious but the mechanics involved in the machine ended up being incredibly finicky, noisy and unreliable, and broke down mid performance several times. It also created a lot of logistical issues for the singers. You can see, in the staging, just how much they had to scale back on ideas. In Rheingold singers are clambering all over this thing, but it decreases with each opera's staging until by Gotterdammerung the machine is mostly used as a backdrop with singers largely positioned on the platform in front of it. It just didn't work.

Yeah I couldn’t even get a ticket to The Hours the first time. It was the first time they brought a production back in consecutive years after first premiering it. They should do an adaptation of Toni Morrison books. Get Adam Guettel to write new operas with Audra McDonald as the star

Birdie Boy said: "That production of La Boheme is so big it even has animals walking on the stage. It can’t be cheap"

Well, they’re saving money on maintenance at least. The set hasn’t been touched up in twenty years.

The La Boheme is a cash cow for them. Yes it costs, but it sells. Yes, they do actually need to do it every season to financially survive.

The new operas do generally sell well in house. Unfortunately they do not sell in movie theaters when included on the Live in HD series, which is how those visually STUNNING productions of El Niño and Ainadamar went without a video recording. There are exceptions though, the Tesori Grounded was the least attended opera of last season. They really went all out trying to get musical theatre fans to show up to that one, and we did not. Topped out at 50% capacity.

The Met does a lot of co productions, the upcoming Innocence for example is a co production/co commission with 5 other companies.

The fixed costs are high. Money from ticket sales cannot come anywhere close to covering their costs. And they are out of date with revenue streams from ticket sales because the house is too big. Save 5-10 dates out of the year that actually sell out, you can always get a ticket to the Met. They can't do the dynamic pricing the rest of the entertainment industry has moved to, or even raise normal ticket prices effectively because of all of those empty seats.

I think it would help to build some kind of collapsible wall that removes the Family Circle. When the rest of the house gets to something like 90% sales, open up the wall and give everyone a percentage bonus based on the ticket sales from the expanded section. The house will still be too big, but it could start to create some sense of urgency around buying tickets, or at least get some positive publicity around ticket sales for the 10 dates that wall would be open.

If they’re really strapped, I guess they could dabble into musical theater every now and again like some of the other opera houses have done. The New York opera did A Little Night music, Lyric opera of Chicago has done Rodgers and Hammerstein, porgy and Bess is always debated whether it’s an opera or a musical and the Met is doing it this season. They could do Show Boat and Sweeney Todd even though I guess it’s not a good look

dan94 said: "I think it would help to build some kind of collapsible wall that removes the Family Circle. When the rest of the house gets to something like 90% sales, open up the wall and give everyone a percentage bonus based on the ticket sales from the expanded section. The house will still be too big, but it could start to create some sense of urgency around buying tickets, or at least get some positive publicity around ticket sales for the 10 dates that wall would be open."

I'd welcome that in many houses. The Broadway Theatre has that type of curtain for a chunk of the rear mezz.

The problem would be, they'd have to price a bunch of the Balcony seats at $35-$60 instead of the $55-$155 that they're at now. But it's a matter of pennies, and still would only be reducing by about 600 seats (so the cap would still be 3,000+).

I'm spoiled by Broadway houses, but I hate sitting in the rear of auditoriums bigger than ~1800 seats, and auditoriums that don't have the mezzanine overhanging the orchestra.

Updated On: 9/5/25 at 12:41 PM

BorisTomashevsky said: "“Significant portions of the set were rebuilt”≠ “The set was rebuilt”"

Typical MAGA. You never can admit when you are wrong.