Metropolitan Opera in the context of "Construction of Rockefeller Center"

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⭐ Core Definition: Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an American opera company based in New York City, currently resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Referred to colloquially as the Met, the company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as the general manager. The company's music director has been Yannick Nézet-Séguin since 2018.

The Met was founded in 1883 as an alternative to the previously established Academy of Music opera house and debuted the same year in a new building on 39th and Broadway (now known as the "Old Met"). It moved to the new Lincoln Center location in 1966.

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👉 Metropolitan Opera in the context of Construction of Rockefeller Center

The construction of the Rockefeller Center complex in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, was conceived in the late 1920s and led by John D. Rockefeller Jr. Rockefeller Center is on one of Columbia University's former campuses and is bounded by Fifth Avenue to the east, Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) to the west, 48th Street to the south, and 51st Street to the north. The center occupies 22 acres (8.9 ha) in total, with some 17 million square feet (1.6 million square meters) of office space.

Columbia University had acquired the site in the early 19th century but had moved to Morningside Heights in Upper Manhattan in the early 1900s. By the 1920s, Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan was a prime site for development. Around that time, the Metropolitan Opera (Met) was looking for a new site for their opera house, and architect Benjamin Wistar Morris decided on the former Columbia site.

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Metropolitan Opera in the context of Rockefeller Center

Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering 22 acres (8.9 ha) between 48th Street and 51st Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The 14 original Art Deco buildings, commissioned by the Rockefeller family, span the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue, split by a large sunken square and a private street called Rockefeller Plaza. Later additions include 75 Rockefeller Plaza across 51st Street at the north end of Rockefeller Plaza, and four International Style buildings on the west side of Sixth Avenue.

In 1928, Columbia University, the owner of the site, leased the land to John D. Rockefeller Jr., the complex's developer. Originally envisioned as the site for a new Metropolitan Opera building, the current Rockefeller Center came about after the Met could not afford to move to the proposed new building. Various plans were discussed before the current one was approved in 1932. Construction of Rockefeller Center started in 1931, and the first buildings opened in 1933. The core of the complex was completed by 1939. Described as one of the greatest projects of the Great Depression era, Rockefeller Center became a New York City designated landmark in 1985 and a National Historic Landmark in 1987. The complex and associated land has been controlled since 2000 by Tishman Speyer, which bought the property for $1.85 billion.

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Metropolitan Opera in the context of Parsifal

Parsifal (WWV 111) is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance Parzival of the Minnesänger Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Old French chivalric romance Perceval ou le Conte du Graal by the 12th-century trouvère Chrétien de Troyes, recounting different accounts of the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his spiritual quest for the Holy Grail.

Wagner conceived the work in April 1857, but did not finish it until 25 years later. In composing it he took advantage of the particular acoustics of his newly built Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Parsifal was first produced at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882. The Bayreuth Festival maintained a monopoly on Parsifal productions until 1914, however the opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1903 after a US court ruled that it was legal.

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Metropolitan Opera in the context of Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler (German: [ˈɡʊstaf ˈmaːlɐ] ; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect, which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 his compositions were rediscovered by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into the 21st century.

Born in Bohemia (then part of the Austrian Empire) to Jewish parents of humble origins, the German-speaking Mahler displayed his musical gifts at an early age. After graduating from the Vienna Conservatory in 1878, he held a succession of conducting posts of rising importance in the opera houses of Europe, culminating in his appointment in 1897 as director of the Vienna Court Opera (Hofoper). During his ten years in Vienna, Mahler—who had converted to Catholicism to secure the post—experienced regular opposition and hostility from the anti-Semitic press. Nevertheless, his innovative productions and insistence on the highest performance standards ensured his reputation as one of the greatest of opera conductors, particularly as an interpreter of the stage works of Wagner, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky. Late in his life he was briefly director of New York's Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic.

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Metropolitan Opera in the context of Lincoln Center

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a 16.3-acre (6.6-hectare) complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to five million visitors annually. It houses performing arts organizations including the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Juilliard School.

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Metropolitan Opera in the context of Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center)

The Metropolitan Opera House (also known as The Met) is an opera house located on Broadway at Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Part of Lincoln Center, the theater was designed by Wallace K. Harrison. It opened in 1966, replacing the original 1883 Metropolitan Opera House at Broadway and 39th Street. With a total capacity of 3,975 (175 being standing room spaces), the house is the largest repertory opera house in the world. Home to the Metropolitan Opera Company, the facility also hosts the American Ballet Theatre in the summer months.

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Metropolitan Opera in the context of Meridian Hall (Toronto)

Meridian Hall, originally opened as O'Keefe Centre for the Performing Arts on October 1, 1960, is a performing arts venue in Toronto, Ontario, also known as Hummingbird Centre for the Performing Arts (1996–2007), and as the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts (2007–2019). It was re-branded as Meridian Hall on September 15, 2019. Located at 1 Front Street East, the facility was constructed for the City of Toronto municipal government, paid for by the O'Keefe Brewery, and houses the largest soft-seat theatre in Canada. It is currently managed by TO Live, an arm's-length agency and registered charity created by the city.

Over its history, the Centre, due to its size and acoustics, has catered primarily to large-scale spectacles, being the home of the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada until 2006. It has hosted touring productions of the Kirov Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera, numerous Broadway musicals, music concerts and legitimate theatre.

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Metropolitan Opera in the context of Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall (also known as Radio City) is an entertainment venue and theater at 1260 Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The Showplace of the Nation", it is the headquarters for the Rockettes. Radio City Music Hall was designed by Edward Durell Stone and Donald Deskey in the Art Deco style.

Radio City Music Hall was built on a plot of land that was originally intended for an opera house for the Metropolitan Opera, plans for which were canceled in 1929. It opened on December 27, 1932, as part of the construction of Rockefeller Center. The 5,960-seat Music Hall was the larger of two venues built for Rockefeller Center's "Radio City" section, the other being the RKO Roxy Theatre (later the Center Theatre); the "Radio City" name came to apply only to Radio City Music Hall. It was largely successful until the 1970s, when declining patronage nearly drove the theater to bankruptcy. Radio City was designated a New York City Landmark in May 1978, and it was restored and allowed to remain open. The theater was extensively renovated in 1999.

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