Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera's first opera house was built as a private theater for a group of wealthy New York businessmen. In the time since its founding in 1883, the Met has flourished and expanded to become one of the most celebrated opera companies in the world. The Met Opera has hosted the U.S. premieres of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Das Rheingold, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal, as well as Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Richard Staruss' Der Rosenkavalier, Giacomo Puccini's Turandot, and Giuseppe Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. It also has given 32 world premieres, including Puccini's La Fanciulla del West and Il Trittico, Englebert Humperdinck's Königskinder, Philip Glass's The Voyage, Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy, and Tan Dun's The First Emperor.

After joining forces with other New York institutions to form Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts, the Met Opera moved into its current home at Lincoln Center in 1966. Seating 3,850 guests, the Metropolitan Opera House is the largest opera house in the world. The Met Opera also brings its live performances to millions of fans through new media distribution initiatives and the Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network.