saturday at the metropolitan opera broadcast

From his seat at the old Metropolitan Opera House at 40th and Broadway, Cross brought the drama and spectacle of grand opera to millions of radio listeners across the country.Ĭross hosted the broadcasts from their inception until he died in 1975. But if there was one voice more than any other that ensured their success, it was that of Milton Cross. 'īelmont was the first woman on the board of directors of the Metropolitan Opera, and it was through these appeals that its finances were stabilized. And the responsibility must pass from a limited group to an unlimited group.

'We all realize that opera has grown from a private luxury to a national necessity. August Belmont offered the very first fundraising appeal, which went as follows: The Met was struggling financially because of the Depression, and the broadcasts provided access to a large audience. It took a number of years and some sober minds before regular opera broadcasts commenced on Christmas Day 1931. 13, might well have been a mix of singing and static. One of the reporters asked what the Morse code said, and it was, 'I have just taken my beer and now I take my seat.' ' One of the radiotelegraph operators did not abide by the silence code, and there were crackles of static coming from his transmission of Morse code. 'But on the 13th, the inventor of the equipment used to pick up the opera decided that he should invite the press. 12 experiment, and they did,' Schubin says. 'The inventor who had arranged for the broadcast, Lee de Forest, had asked the radiotelegraph operators if they would kindly refrain from transmitting during the Jan. Mark Schubin is the Met's unofficial media historian. It was an experimental broadcast, a decade before the appearance of the first radio stations in the U.S. The marriage of opera and broadcasting began on Jan. And 2010 also marked the centennial of the first time an opera was broadcast from the Met's stage. 18, the broadcasts launched their 80th season, making them part of the longest-running classical-music program in the U.S. Last year was momentous for the Metropolitan Opera's radio broadcasts.

Saturday at the metropolitan opera broadcast