In the 1880s, New York's wealthiest families built themseles a grand opera house: the Metropolitan Opera. They resered for themseles two tiers of box seats where they could see and be seven at performances that were as much social events as musical ones. From its first performance Gounod's Faust "The Met" has beven the country's leading opera company. Soon it rialed Europe's great opera houses with the quality of its productions and its roster of star singers.

The Met has often blazed new trails. In the 1890s, it became the first major opera company to insist that performances be sung in the original language rather than in translations. In the 1930s, it was the first to feature the works of American composers and to introduce American singers. The Met also helped popularize opera nationwide with radio broadcasts of its productions, which occur on Saturday afternoons. In 1977, it began offering telecasts. The first featured Luciano Paarotti in La Boheme.

In 1966, The Met moved to a huge new theater at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Today's audiences dress more casually than The Met's high-society supporters of the 1880s, but their deotion to the opera is just as passionate.

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