NEW YORK (AP) — Metropolitan Opera season attendance dropped barely following the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown that coincided with a lower in vacationers to New York.
The Met offered 72% of capability, matching 2023-24 and down from its 75% projection.
“We were on track to continue to improve,” Met basic supervisor Peter Gelb stated Friday. “We had been disillusioned by the gross sales within the final two months of the season — our projections had been a lot greater and I attribute the truth that we didn’t obtain our gross sales objectives to a major drop in tourism.”
New York Metropolis Tourism & Conventions final month decreased its 2025 worldwide customer projection by 17%, the Met stated.
Worldwide patrons accounted for 11% of gross sales, down from the Met’s projection of 16% and from about 20% earlier than the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s unfortunate, but this is the times in which we live,” Gelb stated.
The Met stated factoring ticket reductions, it realized 60% of potential earnings, down from 64% in 2023-24 however up from 57% in 2022–23.
“We were able to sell an equal amount of tickets the last year, but there were more discounted tickets,” Gelb stated. “This really was the result of the last two months of the season.”
There have been 76,000 new ticket patrons, a drop from 85,000 in 2023-24, and the typical age of single ticket patrons was 44, the identical as within the earlier season and a drop from 50 earlier than the pandemic. Subscriptions accounted for simply 7% of ticket gross sales, down from 12-15% earlier than the pandemic,
Gelb stated financial uncertainty impacted gross sales for subsequent season.
“The stock market jumping up and down made people feel insecure,” he stated. “In one week we saw an enormous decline in our advance for next season. Then it picked up again.”
Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin earned $2,045,038 within the yr finish final July 31, up from $1,307,583, within the earlier fiscal yr, in response to the corporate’s tax return launched Friday. Gelb earned $1,395,216, roughly the identical as his $1,379,032 in 2022-23,and he additionally accrued $798,205 listed as retirement or deferred compensation.
Property declined by about $40 million to $467 million, primarily due to an endowment draw following the pandemic.
Amongst particular person productions final season, the very best share of tickets offered had been for the English-language model of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” and a brand new staging of Verdi’s “Aida,” each at 82%, adopted by the corporate premiere of Jake Heggie’s “Moby-Dick” at 81%
Different new productions included Strauss’ “Salome” (74%), John Adams’ “Antony and Cleopatra” (65%), Osvaldo Golijov’s “Ainadamar” (61%) and Jeanine Tesori’s “Grounded” (50%).
One of the best-selling revivals had been Puccini’s “Tosca” (78%), Tchaikovsky’s “Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades)” and Puccini’s La Bohème (77% every), Beethoven’s “Fidelio” and Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” (76% every) and Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” (71%).
Lagging had been Strauss’ “Die Frau ohne Schatten” (68percent0, Verdi’s “Rigoletto” (64%), Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” and the German-language model of Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” (62% every) and Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” (59%).
