When the Metropolitan Opera began its live-to-cinema opera transmissions on December 30, 2006, its then-new general manager Peter Gelb says many people predicted the expensive experiment would fail.
"I think there were a lot of people who expected us to fall on our face with this program," Gelb told Reuters.
Seven years later, and with an anticipated 3 million viewers seeing about a dozen Met opera broadcasts this year in cinemas in 64 countries, Gelb says he has proved the doubters wrong.
The Met's broadcasts have created a new market for live cinema broadcasts of dance, opera, plays and orchestral performances by a raft of arts institutions, from the Royal Opera to the Bolshoi to the Berlin Philharmonic--which has aired its New Year's Eve concert featuring Chinese piano soloist Lang Lang.
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