{"id":632114,"date":"2026-09-30T13:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/632114\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T13:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:06:09","slug":"start-spreading-the-news-new-yorks-opera-giveaway-shows-uk-politicians-how-to-be-brave-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/632114\/","title":{"rendered":"Start spreading the news\u2026 New York\u2019s opera giveaway shows UK politicians how to be brave | Opera"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opera for All. It\u2019s the credo of every opera house in the world, and each has its own ways and means of attracting new \u2013 and, crucially, younger \u2013 audiences. But it\u2019s rare that one gives away thousands of tickets to anyone who applies. In New York last week, mayor Mamdani took to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera to tell his city that previously opera-shy citizens<\/a> should apply for one of the 70,000 free tickets<\/a> that he and the opera house are giving away this and every season. That means a staggering 10,000 free tickets a month. Not just for the under-25s, not just for the productions that they can\u2019t shift tickets for on Mondays and matinees. New Yorkers simply enter the lottery<\/a> the day before and if successful, will get a pair of tickets to the next day\u2019s show.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s announcement coincides with the Met\u2019s general manager, Peter Gelb, going on a fundraising drive<\/a> hoping for $1.5bn to secure the opera house\u2019s future. Generous as the offer seems, the Met can surely spare the tickets, given how few of their shows actually sell out the 4,000-seat hall \u2013 the Met averaged only 72% capacity the last season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s different about the Met scheme to that of, say, English National Opera\u2019s free tickets for under-21s<\/a>, or the heavily discounted ticket schemes on offer elsewhere is that it\u2019s the mayor who\u2019s doing the talking, putting his political capital and small-p populist appeal behind the art form. And that\u2019s where there\u2019s no comparison between Mamdani and British politicians in terms of cultural bravery. Whatever party they belong to, no UK politician for several decades past has wanted to get too close to opera for fear of being contaminated by its associations of elitism, out-of-touchedness, unaffordable posho luxury, and cultural irrelevance. Angela Rayner was branded a champagne socialist<\/a> for daring to enjoy opera at Glyndebourne (her ticket cost her \u00a362); politicians who are known opera-lovers, including George Osborne and Michael Gove, saw no benefit in being associated with Opera North or Covent Garden during their time in office, and didn\u2019t really want their shameful opera-loving secret getting out.<\/p>\n

One of the greatest art forms we have \u2026 L\u2019Orfeo by Monteverdi in William Kentridge\u2019s 2026 staging for Glyndebourne. Photograph: Tristram Kenton\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Which is where Mamdani\u2019s essential message is so refreshing: that the best of what humanity has done in music and theatre, in opera as in all forms, belongs to everyone. That sounds like the most straightforward proposition there could possibly be when it comes to arts policy, but it has never been as powerfully articulated by any British politician in recent memory as Mamdani has just done. \u201cOpera is one of the greatest art forms we have \u2026 and every New Yorker should have the opportunity to see it, no matter how much money is in their pocket,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mamdani referenced a previous incumbent in his announcement: Fiorello La Guardia, who was mayor from 1934-45, and his creation of \u201cthe people\u2019s opera\u201d, the New York City Opera Company<\/a>, in 1943. La Guardia said<\/a>: \u201cI want justice on the broadest scale \u2026 justice that gives to everyone some chance for the beauty and the better things of life\u201d. Mamdani is taking on that mantle. Will any British politician have the courage to do the same, and bet their political fortune on a belief in the socially transformative power of culture in general, and opera in particular?<\/p>\n

Mind you, if you do get lucky in the Met\u2019s lottery, your first opera could be Macbeth, it could be La Boh\u00e8me \u2013 or it could be Parsifal. Wagner\u2019s last opera \u2013 all four to five hours of it \u2013 is as divisive now as it was in 1882. Seeing the piece for the first time at ENO in the 1990s changed my life \u2013 I just couldn\u2019t believe an orchestra was capable of that time-warping, pain-racked sensuality in the transformation scene in the first act, the place where \u201ctime becomes space\u201d as the old knight Gurnemanz sings to Parsifal<\/a> \u2013 that\u2019s the alchemy that Wagner\u2019s orchestration literally makes happen.<\/p>\n

Gateway drug \u2026 Andreas Schager as Parsifal and Claudia Mahnke as Kundry in Parsifal in Hamburg State Opera\u2019s 2017 staging of Wagner\u2019s opera. Photograph: Dpa Picture Alliance\/Alamy<\/p>\n

I think Parsifal would be an incredible gateway drug to the whole art-form, but if you\u2019re allergic to Wagner\u2019s language<\/a>, you\u2019ll quite probably disagree. A new production opens tomorrow at Covent Garden conducted by Jakub Hr\u016f\u0161a<\/a>. Tickets aren\u2019t free \u2013 you need at least \u00a327<\/a> \u2013 but get there if you can, and be converted, or repelled, but either way you will be moved.<\/p>\n

This week Tom has been listening to: Bruckner\u2019s String Quintet. Listen to the third movement, the Adagio, and prepare to have your preconceptions about Bruckner overturned. The intimacy of the soundworld, the volatility of how the melodies melt into different keys, the lines of lyricism that spread over this movement, and the whole piece \u2013 it\u2019s magical. Listen on Spotify<\/a> | Apple Music<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Opera for All. It\u2019s the credo of every opera house in the world, and each has its own…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-632114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}