What Happens Just Before Show Time at the Met Opera, in 12 Rooms You’ll Never See
We made you an index because there was so much we couldn’t put in that video you just watched.
(And if you haven’t, go watch it.)
In Order of Appearance
“Whipped Cream” 12 seconds Alexei Ratmansky’s ballet is as absurd on the surface as its set designs indicate. The plot is thin and lighthearted, but critics have found the production to be pure bliss. Alastair Macaulay, reviewing the ballet in The New York Times, called it an “exuberantly nutty piece” that “made its New York debut with high-spirited success.”
Snow Yak 14 seconds Artists have a rich tradition of dipping their toes into the world of theater. “Whipped Cream” features set and costume designs by Mark Ryden. Some of the visual motifs in his darkly comedic paintings have made their way into the show, including this snow yak, below. One dancer stands for the front legs and head; another is in the back, operating the yak and an oversize baby that rides on it with a flag. (It makes sense not to overthink it.)
Cory Stearns 49 seconds Spot him in the back of the first ballet class. He’s a principal dancer and one of the company’s go-tos for princely roles. (Look at his face, and you’ll see why.)
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Vladilen Semenov, Ballet Master 58 seconds Many ballet masters and mistresses are former dancers. Mr. Semenov was a Soviet-era star of the Kirov Ballet — now known as the Mariinsky — in Russia. Here’s a video of him dancing, in 1969.
Archive 1 minute, 7 seconds The Met’s archive is filled with catnip for opera fans. It offers a trip through more than 150 years: the tenure of the great maestro Arturo Toscanini, a needlepoint of the soprano Amelita Galli-Curci and a small sculpture from the forging scene in Wagner’s “Siegfried.” One of the recent additions to this wall is a portrait of Robert Tuggle, the beloved archivist who died last year at age 83.
Poker Room 1 minute, 36 secondsOne of the Met Opera’s traditions that seems encased in amber, and a bit anachronistic, is the intermission poker game among members of the orchestra. A production with two intermissions could mean more than an hour of downtime in the musicians’ lounge. Still, there’s not enough time to change chips, so everyone plays with cash.
Wig shop 2 minutes, 12 seconds A wig takes about 40 hours to make. Some of these wigs will eventually make their way onstage in a new production of Bellini’s “Norma,” a bel canto tragedy that ends with the title character throwing herself onto a pyre. (It’s not the only time this happens in opera.)
Misty Copeland 2 minutes, 54 seconds One of the most famous ballerinas in the world, who in 2015 became the first black woman to be named a principal dancer in American Ballet Theater’s history, was taking it easy during this class because of an injury. She is back onstage now, and continues to sell out the Met Opera’s cavernous house. You might also recognize her from this Under Armour ad:
Nancy Raffa 3 minutes Ms. Raffa is another dancer-turned-ballet teacher. (You can see her disciplined movement in action through her repeat-after-me mode of instruction.) Here, she is in Twyla Tharp’s “The Little Ballet,” alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov in the 1980s.
Esa-Pekka Salonen 3 minutes, 54 seconds This Finnish composer and conductor, who was a longtime music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, wowed the critics last season at the Met Opera with Richard Strauss’s challenging “Elektra.” He returned this year to lead the Met Orchestra’s annual concert series at Carnegie Hall.
Symphony No. 1 by Gustav Mahler 3 minutes, 55 seconds Mr. Salonen and the Met musicians were rehearsing this for their first Carnegie Hall concert. The performance ended up in The New York Times’s weekly list of best moments in classical music, in particular this remarkable, circuslike feat: “Esa-Pekka Salonen lost his baton while signaling a downbeat during the hellfire finale of Mahler’s First Symphony. Miraculously, he grabbed a new one off the podium in the same sweeping motion, and didn’t miss a beat.”
David Hallberg 4 minutes, 27 seconds Mr. Hallberg, a principal dancer with American Ballet Theater, is a global star and in 2011 was the first American to join the Bolshoi Ballet in Russia. But an injury in 2014 kept him off stage until late last year. The premiere of “Whipped Cream” this spring was his return to Ballet Theater.
“Madama Butterfly” 5 minutes, 04 seconds Anthony Minghella’s staging of this Puccini opera, for all its atmospheric simplicity, is full of flowers. Act I ends with a love duet surrounded by falling petals and a slowly descending curtain made of flowers on strings like popcorn garland. Later, in one of the opera’s more heartbreaking moments, the character Cio-Cio-San lays out these flowers as she happily awaits her husband’s return — not knowing the tragedy that awaits.
“Tosca” 5 minutes, 12 seconds Many longtime Met Opera fans were enraged when, in 2009, the company replaced Franco Zeffirelli’s lush and beloved staging of Puccini’s “Tosca” with one that was more spare and sexual. Next season, at the annual New Year’s Eve gala, the Met is to unveil a new production, by David McVicar, which restores some of Mr. Zeffirelli’s sense of spectacle — and grand set pieces like a re-creation of Sant’Andrea della Valle, the church in Rome, for Act I, and the top of the Castel Sant’Angelo for Tosca’s fatal leap in Act III.
James Whiteside 5 minutes, 55 seconds Ballet Theater regulars are most likely already familiar with Mr. Whiteside, the principal dancer who regularly slips into chivalrous roles. What they may not know are his off-hours alter egos: the drag queen Uhu Betch, for example, or the sassy rapper JbDubs.
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Alexei Ratmansky 6 minutes, 53 seconds Choreographers, like playwrights and directors, can often be found in the audience at their own performances. Mr. Ratmansky, one of the most widely respected and sought-after dancemakers in the world, is no exception. Audience members can expect to see more of him in the future: This spring, Ballet Theater announced the Ratmansky Project, a five-year fund-raising drive to support at least one new work a year by him.
The Building The Metropolitan Opera’s home at Lincoln Center opened 50 years ago, and it is more or less the same place. Sure, there used to be a penthouse restaurant called Top of the Met, and you see less black-tie fashion these days, but the building’s sheer scale and the daily traffic backstage — conveyed here in Donald A. Mackay’s illustration, which The New York Times published in 1966 — hasn’t changed much at all.
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