The Metropolitan Opera’s production of Wagner’s “Tannhäuser.”
In Friday’s (12/1) New York Times, Orlando Mayorquin, Lola Fadulu, Patrick Farrell, and Joshua Barone report, “The opening night of a revival of Richard Wagner’s ‘Tannhäuser’ at the Metropolitan Opera in New York was interrupted Thursday night by climate protesters shouting ‘No Opera’ from the balconies on both sides of the opera house. Protesters with the group Extinction Rebellion NYC unfurled banners that read ‘No Opera On A Dead Planet,’ according to Peter Gelb, the general manager at the Met. Met officials were then forced to bring down the curtain … halfway through the second act…. Security officials ushered out the protesters … The crowd jeered the demonstrators and burst into applause when the curtains again opened, but … a woman sitting in the orchestra section of the audience then stood up and began to shout. The curtains closed again…. The show was delayed for 22 minutes … Mr. Gelb appeared onstage to inform the audience that the house lights would remain on so security could quickly identify and remove any additional protesters … Thursday’s interruption was just the latest example of climate activists disrupting a classical music concert…. Climate activists have also targeted museums, sometimes harming paintings, and interrupted sporting events.”
