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Exploring the Metropolitan Opera: A Quiz on Its History and Influence

Test your knowledge of the Metropolitan Opera's history, notable figures, and productions with this engaging quiz.

#Metropolitan Opera #opera #music history #classical music #theater #performing arts

1 At one point, both ________ and Gustav Mahler were regular Met conductors.

2 In the 1990s, only limited productions used a symbolic type of scenery (starting from Der Fliegende Holländer in 1989; then Samson et Dalila in 1998; and ________).

3 ________ (1938–1942) (principal conductor of German repertory)

4 The live broadcasts were originally heard on NBC Radio's ________ and continued on the Blue Network's successor, ABC, into the 1960s.

5 The abstract concept included casting the son of Cio-Cio San as a ________-style puppet, operated in plain sight by three puppeteers clothed in black.

6 The Met, as it is commonly called, is one of the twelve resident organizations at ________.

7 Gelb began his tenure by opening the 2006/2007 season with a colorful and highly stylized new production of Madama Butterfly by the English director ________.

8 Victorian era costumes and surroundings were adopted as the scenery for 17th century Scotland in ________.

9 The present Metropolitan Opera House, with approximately 3,800 seats, is located in Lincoln Center at Lincoln Square in the ________ and was designed by architect Wallace K. Harrison.

10 Zinka Milanov, Jussi Björling, Alexander Kipnis, Richard Tucker and Robert Merrill were first heard at the Met under his management, while ________ was the dominant Wagnerian soprano of the era.

💡 Interesting Facts

  • during the Metropolitan Opera premiere of The Makropulos Case, tenor Richard Versalle suffered a fatal heart attack after singing the line "You can only live so long".
  • both Herbert Witherspoon and Göran Gentele died before the opening nights of their first seasons as general directors of the Metropolitan Opera.
  • as Director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, Wayne L. Horvitz played a major role in negotiating labor disputes ranging from coal strikes to musicians at the Metropolitan Opera.
  • American mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer created the role of the mother of Yueyang in Tan Dun's opera The First Emperor at the Metropolitan Opera in 2006.
  • in eighteen years, baritone William Walker performed over 360 times at New York's Metropolitan Opera.
  • in exchange for shutting down the Manhattan Opera Company and refraining from producing opera in the United States for ten years, Oscar Hammerstein I received over a million dollars from the Metropolitan Opera.
  • when it was shown at the Metropolitan Opera, Diana von Solange by Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was so poorly received that three hundred people signed a petition demanding that it be removed from the repertory.
  • when Scottish soprano Muriel Dickson toured with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company to New York City in 1934–1935, she was invited to join the Metropolitan Opera.
  • the Met's new opera The First Emperor by Tan Dun has been in development for ten years.
  • Sandra Warfield met future husband James McCracken when they sang the leads in Samson and Delilah, the same opera in which the couple performed in her Metropolitan Opera farewell performance.
  • Nino Martini appeared in numerous Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1940s while simultaneously starring regularly in leading tenor roles at the Metropolitan Opera.
  • operatic tenor Andreas Dippel portrayed the title role in Alberto Franchetti Asrael in its United States premiere at the Metropolitan Opera.
  • operatic soprano Gail Robinson won the Metropolitan Opera auditions at the young age of 19.
  • lyric coloratura soprano Harolyn Blackwell replaced opera diva Kathleen Battle when she famously got fired from the Metropolitan Opera.
  • Japanese tenor Taro Ichihara made his Metropolitan Opera debut in the role of the Italian tenor in Der Rosenkavalier.
  • opera singer Nell Rankin used her pet jaguar, King Tut, as a negotiating tool at the Metropolitan Opera.
  • tenor Albert Reiss sang in 1,070 performances at the Metropolitan Opera.
  • Bantcho Bantchevsky committed suicide during a nationally-broadcast performance from the Metropolitan Opera.
  • American tenor Charles Anthony has sung with the Metropolitan Opera for 52 consecutive seasons, which is unparalleled in company history.
  • American opera singer Margaret Harshaw portrayed more Wagnerian heroines on stage at the Metropolitan Opera than anyone else in the opera's history.
  • Italian mezzo-soprano Flora Perini (pictured) originated the role of the Princess in the world premiere of Puccini's Suor Angelica at the Metropolitan Opera in 1918.
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