Met opera adds 300 theaters to its HD broadcasts

It was a live performance of The Metropolitan Opera, broadcast to hundreds of theaters worldwide in a program so popular that America's pre-eminent opera house is expanding it to 1,500 venues in 46 countries.

That is 300 more than last year, including an additional 100 theaters in the United States, to bring the domestic total to 620.

Egypt, Portugal and Spain are among countries that will now get the high-definition satellite simulcasts that draw more than 2 million spectators a year, some munching on popcorn after nabbing tickets at US$18 to US$25 a pop.

Seeing the show in person costs US$30 to US$330.

The Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning “The Met: Live in HD” has had “a significant impact on the Met,” general manager Peter Gelb told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “It's a financial shot in the arm, a new source of revenue which we sorely need as we fight the challenges of the recession.”

A dozen live transmissions are slated for the fifth season of the HD telecasts, starting Oct. 9 with a much-awaited new production, Richard Wagner's “Das Rheingold” directed by Robert Lepage.

Billing itself the “world's largest provider of alternative cinema content,” the Met creates the shows in-house, with Gelb as executive producer.

A former part-time Met usher, he taps his background as a Sony recording executive, which he says trained him in “a combination of live performance and capturing it on video.”

Last season, more than 2.4 million “Live in HD” tickets were sold online or at local theaters for nine transmissions plus recorded repeats, tripling the Met's in-person audience of about 800,000.

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