abatt Posted December 6, 2012 Share Posted December 6, 2012 The Met is planning renovation work during the "quiet" summer months. The renovations will take place during the next four years. I think these renovation plans may kill the possibility of seeing any ballet company there during the summer months, after the ABT season finishes. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-embarks-on-60-million-renovation.html?ref=arts Link to comment
sandik Posted December 6, 2012 Share Posted December 6, 2012 Oh, this is unhappy news, schedule-wise. It's been a couple of years since I followed along closely with their summer schedule -- what's been there recently? Link to comment
California Posted December 6, 2012 Share Posted December 6, 2012 In recent years, the Lincoln Center summer festival brought POB, Mariinsky, and Australia Ballets. Didn't they perform at the State/Koch Theater? It seemed like a good use for that theater after the NYCB season is completed. Link to comment
abatt Posted December 7, 2012 Author Share Posted December 7, 2012 The Australia and the POB were at the Koch, not the Met. Mariinsky was at the Met. Link to comment
Michael Posted December 7, 2012 Share Posted December 7, 2012 Too bad they don't seem to planning to renovate the theater seating and access - the seats are uncomfortably crowded with no leg room, the sight lines are horrible for dance in the orchestra seating (you can't see over the people in front of you) and, worst of all, access to and from the orchestra eventually funnels everyone - the entire downstairs audience - through a single, pinched stairway that would be a deathtrap in the event of a stampede. It takes ten minutes of shuffling in a stuffed in crowd to get into and out of the place. The Met is the paradigm of how not to design a theater and after nearly 50 years they should do something about it. MP Link to comment
abatt Posted December 7, 2012 Author Share Posted December 7, 2012 Compared to the vast majority of Broadway theaters, I think the seats at the MET are very comfortable and spacious. Broadway seats are intentionally designed to be very tight with no leg room in order to increase the number of seats. Link to comment
dirac Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 Thanks for starting this thread, abatt. The article notes that the renovations are focusing on the "guts" of the theater rather than the audience's side: The Met’s technology has fallen behind European opera houses, where many of the directors bringing new productions to New York are used to computerized controls that produce precise results for increasingly spectacular shows. At the Met stagehands still twiddle dials, plug in cables, consult numbered charts and use a lot of muscle. Link to comment
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