The opening night of the Metropolitan Opera's new Tristan und Isolde was one of those great nights at the opera, the kind that will have people arguing what shone most: the confident complexity of Yuval Sharon's staging, Lise Davidsen's indelible Isolde, her chemistry with tenor Michael Spyres, or the sensuous discipline of the orchestra. The answer, of course, is all of the above.
The Sources of Music and The Triumphs of Music are each 30 by 36 feet, and they look magnificent through the glass walls of the opera company's home, day and night. The pair have been appraised at $55 million by Sotheby's, according to Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, who told the New York Times last week that the company may sell them, with the condition that the buyer "would have to agree to leave them in place, with a donation plaque."
Although this work is considered a modern opera, the action in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay takes place during World War II. Two Jewish cousins work together to create an anti-fascist superhero, the "Escapist." They hope the comic book adventures they write inspire others to fight against Nazism. The three distinct settings where the plot unfolds allow the audience to experience New York City, Prague, and a comic book reality.
The two multi-storey, site-specific murals that Chagall created for the Met, The Triumph of Music and The Sources of Music (both 1966), have been collectively appraised at $55m by Sotheby's. If they are offered for sale, it will be under the condition that the buyer leaves them in place. The new owner, in the event of a sale, would be identified by an adjacent donation plaque.
These staff reductions, combined with some temporary salary reductions and other cost-cutting measures, will reduce the Met's expenses by $15m for the remaining six months of the Met's fiscal year, and by another $25m in the Met's following fiscal year.
The employee cafeteria serves all of the 2,000 employees who work here, not to mention the singers who come and the orchestra. Then, there are 13 bars spread across all of the floors. There are 3,000 people who come to see an opera on a typical night, so they disperse among the 13 bars to get a glass of champagne and a sandwich during intermission.
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The Metropolitan Opera's 2025-2026 season opened last night with Mason Bates' The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Based on Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, the opera follows Josef Kavalier and Samuel Klayman, two Jewish cousins who break into the burgeoning comic book industry of the 1930s with the creation of an anti-fascist superhero called The Escapist, inspired by Josef's escape from Nazi-occupied Prague.
