September 28, 2022
Let’s go Met.
The Metropolitan Opera‘s 2022-2023 season opened last night and visitors to Times Square were treated to a free viewing of Medea, on two jumbo screens, starring Sondra Radvanovsky. The story is pretty dark and, set against the backdrop of the City’s current crime wave, felt eerily appropriate. Although seating for the event was limited to a couple hundred folding chairs, there were plenty of seats still available as the curtain went up. By intermission even more seats were available but outside the dedicated viewing area hundreds of people paused to catch parts of the performance as music filled the Crossroads. The Met’s two big screens fit in perfectly amid the dozens of brightly colored electronic billboards that line the perimeter of Times Square. The opera’s fiery, blood-drenched finale was a powerful reminder of just how fragile our hold on life is and how emotions run amok can lead to the sort of horrifying outcomes that have become all too common around here lately.
