Above: soprano Licia Abanese places a kiss on the stage of the Old Met after singing "Un bel di"
On April 16th, 1966, a gala concert marked the closing of the Old Met. The opera house had stood at the corner of Broadway and 39th Street and had echoed to the sounds of the greatest voices of the decades between its opening in 1883 and the final evening's bittersweet farewell in 1966.
As a young opera lover, I was thrilled to attend eight performances at the venerable theater. The first of these was on November 27th, 1963 - just a few days after President John F Kennedy's assassination. The opera was DON GIOVANNI in a Eugene Berman production, and the cast included Giorgio Tozzi, Teresa Stich-Randall, and Lisa Della Casa. I saw FAUST twice - once with Jerome Hines as Mephistopheles and again later with the recently-debuted Nicolai Ghiaurov. Licia Albanese as Butterfly and Mary Curtis-Verna as Turandot headlined my Puccini evenings. There was a wonderful ELISIR D'AMORE with Mirella Freni, Nicolai Gedda, and Fernando Corena; a Leontyne Price rarity - her Fiordiligi in COSI FAN TUTTE was sung in English along side Met luminaries Rosalind Elias, Roberta Peters, and Richard Tucker. My favorite soprano at the time, Gabriella Tucci, sang a radiant TROVATORE Leonora opposite Rita Gorr, Bruno Prevedi, and Robert Merrill.
Above: Regine Crespin, Regina Resnik, and Renata Tebaldi at Sherry's Grand Tier restaurant following the Old Met's closing night concert
By the time I made it to The Met, the old house was in sad condition. Knowing that a move uptown was imminent, everything had been allowed to deteriorate. During the final season, nostalgic patrons were known to rip bits of red velvet off the walls, and some of the old lighting fixtures were reported stolen.
In late Summer, 1966, fresh out of high-school, I was allowed to make my first solo trip to New York City to buy tickets for performances for the first season at the New Met. That story is here.