The Met revealed

Old opera house brings new entertainment

Jamaican audiences will continue to enjoy the current Met Opera in HD season at Palace Amusement cinemas until April 2013.

For many, this is a new and stimulating genre, but opera dates back to Italy at the end of the 16th century and is part of the Western classical music tradition, which extended through the rest of Europe.

It is an artform in which singers and musicians perform dramatic works, combining text (called a libretto) and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting.

Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre such as acting, scenery and costumes, and sometimes includes dance.

The performance is usually presented in an opera house and is accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble.

The Metropolitan Opera (the Met), now in its 129th season, is a vibrant home for the most creative and talented artists and artistes, including singers, conductors, composers, orchestra musicians, stage directors, designers, visual artists, choreographers, and dancers from around the world.

Known as the venue of the world's greatest voices, the Met has been under the musical direction of James Levine since 1976.

Maestro Levine is credited with having created one of opera's finest orchestras and choruses.

In the summer of 2006, Peter Gelb became the Met's 16th general manager.

innovative work

Under the leadership of Gelb and Levine, the Met has been elevating the company's theatrical standards by significantly increasing the number of new productions, staged by the most imaginative directors working in theatre and opera.

The company is also securing increased commitments from the world's greatest singers. The Met has launched a series of initiatives to broaden its audience internationally. Efforts have ranged from transmitting operas live in high definition to movie theatres around the world to hosting open dress rehearsals for the general public.

To revitalise the company's repertory, the Met has pledged to present modern masterpieces alongside the classic repertory.

The Metropolitan Opera was founded in 1883, with its first opera house built on Broadway and 39th Street by a group of wealthy businessmen who wanted their own theatre.

In the company's early years, the management changed course several times, first performing everything in Italian, then everything in German, before finally settling into a policy of performing most works in their original language, with some notable exceptions.

Each season, the Met stages more than 200 opera performances in New York. More than 800,000 people attend the performances in the opera house during the season, and millions more experience the Met through new media distribution initiatives and state-of-the-art technology.

In December 2006, the company launched The Met: Live in HD, a series of performance transmissions shown live in high definition in movie theatres around the world.

The series has expanded from an initial six transmissions to 12 in the 2012-13 season and today reaches more than 1,900 venues in 64 countries.

Jamaica joined the international Met community in 2012 and to date, audiences have seen three operas, the latest being Thomas Ades' The Tempest, which encores today at Palace Amusement cinemas in Liguanea, Mandeville, and Montego Bay.

See your Sunday Gleaner for a glossary of terms used in the opera.