“Snap out of it!”

Our friends at Zaniboni made our night (year) with tickets to the Opera. The show, Mozart’s comedy Le Nozze di Figaro was brilliant, but the real showstopper of course, was the Met.

As lighting designers, we are most often tasked with hiding light in architectural details and choosing the smallest aperture recessed fixtures. The architectural lighting must disappear. If we have done our job right, you experience the light, but don’t understand the source. Interior designers have the challenge of choosing and designing the decorative fittings, and it’s these elements that really give character to the lighting. But let’s not forget the materials. Light can only do so much without the help of the material textures and finishes. It’s these elements that capture the light and create an environment.

The Metropolitan Opera House was built as the center piece of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The theater was designed by Wallace K. Harrison and opened in 1966.

The expansive lobby features a curving concrete and terrazzo cantilevered stairway. The centerpiece of the lobby is an array of eleven crystal chandeliers that resemble satellites, starbursts and planets. The auditorium has 21 matching chandeliers, the largest of which measures 18 feet in diameter.

The chandeliers were designed by Hans Harald Rath of Vienna and donated by the government of Austria as repayment for our country’s help during the Marshall Plan following World War II.

The chandeliers' cosmic aesthetic was a nod to the new Met, a symbol of the space age, while the old Met was a mark of the gilded age.

That said, the Met is GILDED. The materials are stone, concrete, gold with rich red carpeting and fabric wall coverings. Marc Chagall’s mural can be seen from the plaza, and a bronze sculpture by Mary Callery crowns the proscenium. Ceilings are leafed in gold and handrails are hammered bronze.