Peter Gelb, General
Manager of The
Metropolitan Opera, welcomed Barbara
Tober and
over 60 friends -- including
F. Murray Abraham, Chloe
Misseldine, and Marc
Rosen -- for
a behind-the-scenes backstage tour.
“While we don’t have a performance to offer to you today,
you’re in for a treat… a tour of what many consider to be
the most famous opera stage in the world.
It’s the stage where Luciano
Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo,
and José Carreras, otherwise
known as the three tenors, had some of their greatest
triumphs.”, shared Gelb. Guests saw costumes, props, and
backdrops, visited the backstage inner workings, and stood
on the iconic stage.
The occasion was to
celebrate the
upcoming On
Stage at the Met Gala on
May 20, which will honor Barbara’s steadfast and ardent
support of the company, and for her towering achievements as
a philanthropist and patron of the arts. “Our audience gets
to trade places with our stars by dining on stage with the
gold leaf ceiling, red velvet seats, and glimmering
Swarovski crystal chandeliers as their backdrop,” continued
Peter Gelb, “Some of our most popular singers will regale
you with some of your favorite arias. Most importantly, we
will be honoring Barbara, who recently endowed the historic
Lobmeyer chandeliers that we’re standing under. Barbara’s
generous gift was in honor of her husband, the late and
great Donald Gibbs Tober, who loved The Met so much.”
Barbara Tober thanked Peter, offering, “I’ve
been coming to the opera since I was 8. I remember the old
Met building downtown, too. Life is opera -- passions, love
and hate, all the emotions. Sometimes it’s Grand Opera. And
truly Grand Opera is this Met theater, which we all love.”
Afterwards, guests spent the
afternoon having
tea with Barbara
in the Met’s Belmont Room,
including Carrie
Barratt, David Beer,
Mr. and Mrs. J. Truman Bidwell, Jr., CeCe Cord, Katherine
Crockett, Helen Drutt-English, Maria Eugenia and Dr. William
A. Haseltine, Helen Fisher and John Tierney, Susan Gutfreund,
Alvin D. Hall, Sharon King Hoge, The Honorable Brenda L.
Johnson,
Michele Gerber Klein, Helen Little, Christopher Mason,
Liane Pei,
Faanya Rose, Frank J. Sciame, Jr., HRH Prince Dimitri of
Yugoslavia,
Lloyd P. Zuckerberg and
many more.
The On Stage at the Met Gala,
which takes place on the magnificent stage at the opera
house in New York, will feature a black-tie dinner, dancing,
and performances by extraordinary Met artists. To join
us in celebrating Mrs. Tober on this very special evening,
visit www.metopera.org/season/events/
Under the leadership of Peter Gelb, the Met’s
Maria Manetti Shrem General Manager, and Yannick
Nézet-Séguin, Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, the
Metropolitan Opera is one of America’s leading performing
arts organizations and a vibrant home for the world’s most
creative and talented artists, including singers,
conductors, composers, orchestra musicians, stage directors,
designers, visual artists, choreographers, and dancers. The
company presents approximately 200 performances each season
of a wide variety of operas, ranging from early masterpieces
to contemporary works. In recent years, the Met has launched
many initiatives designed to make opera more accessible,
most prominently the Live in HD series of cinema
transmissions, which dramatically expands the Met audience
by allowing select performances to be seen in more than 50
countries around the world.
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