As the Metropolitan Opera launches its 133rd season this fall, a new film by multiple Emmy Award–winning documentary filmmaker Susan Froemke surveys a remarkable period of the company’s rich history and a time of great change for New York. The gala world premiere takes place at the opera house itself on Sunday, October 1 at 6:30 pm as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s 55th New York Film Festival, the first time in the history of the Festival that one of their films will be shown at the Met.

Drawing on rarely seen archival footage, stills, and recent interviews, The Opera House chronicles the creation of the Metropolitan Opera’s storied home of the last 50 years, against the backdrop of the artists, architects, and politicians who shaped the cultural life of New York City in the ’50s and ’60s. Amongst the notable figures in the film are famed soprano Leontyne Price, who opened the new Met in 1966 in Samuel Barber’s Anthony and Cleopatra; Rudolf Bing, the Met’s imperious General Manager, who engineered the move from the old house to the new one; Robert Moses, the unstoppable city planner who bulldozed an entire neighborhood to make room for Lincoln Center; and Wallace Harrison, whose quest for architectural glory was never fully realized.

The 55th New York Film Festival takes place between September 28 and October 15 throughout the Lincoln Center campus. To view the complete lineup, visit the festival website.

TEXT: Courtesy of NYFF Website

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