Fathom Events and The Metropolitan Opera
present The Opera House, a new film by documentary filmmaker Susan Froemke, on
January 13 and 17 only. The Opera House surveys a remarkable period of the
Metropolitan Opera's history and a time of great change for New York. Featuring
rarely seen footage, recent interviews, and a soundtrack of extraordinary Met
performances, the film chronicles the creation of the Met's home of the last 50
years, against the backdrop of the artists, architects, and politicians who shaped
cultural life in New York City. Among the notable figures in the film are famed
soprano Leontyne Price, who opened the new Met in 1966 in Samuel Barber's
Antony and Cleopatra; Rudolf Bing, the Met's imperious General Manager, who
engineered the move from the old house to the new one; Robert Moses, the
unstoppable city planner who bulldozed an entire neighborhood to make room for
Lincoln Center; and Wallace Harrison, whose quest for architectural glory was
never fully realized.