On March 25, 2024, Peter Gelb, General Manager of The Metropolitan Opera, welcomed Barbara Tober and over 60 friends—including F. Murray Abraham, Chloe Misseldine, and Marc Rosen — for a behind-the-scenes backstage tour.
“While we don’t have a performance to offer to you today, you’re in for a treat… a tour of what many consider to be the most famous opera stage in the world. It’s the stage where Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, and José Carreras, otherwise known as the three tenors, had some of their greatest triumphs.”, shared Gelb.
Guests saw costumes, props, and backdrops, visited the backstage inner workings, and stood on the iconic stage.
The occasion was to celebrate the upcoming On Stage at the Met Gala on May 20, which will honor Barbara’s steadfast and ardent support of the company, and for her towering achievements as a philanthropist and patron of the arts.
“Our audience gets to trade places with our stars by dining on stage with the gold leaf ceiling, red velvet seats, and glimmering Swarovski crystal chandeliers as their backdrop,”
continued Peter Gelb,
“Some of our most popular singers will regale you with some of your favorite arias. Most importantly, we will be honoring Barbara, who recently endowed the historic Lobmeyer chandeliers that we’re standing under. Barbara’s generous gift was in honor of her husband, the late and great Donald Gibbs Tober, who loved The Met so much.”
Barbara Tober thanked Peter, offering,
“I’ve been coming to the opera since I was 8.
I remember the old Met building downtown, too.
Life is opera — passions, love and hate, all the emotions. Sometimes it’s Grand Opera. And truly Grand Opera is this Met theater, which we all love.”
Afterwards, guests spent the afternoon having tea with Barbara in the Met’s Belmont Room, including Carrie Barratt, David Beer, Mr. and Mrs. J. Truman Bidwell, Jr., CeCe Cord, Katherine Crockett, Helen Drutt-English, Maria Eugenia and Dr. William A. Haseltine, Helen Fisher and John Tierney, Susan Gutfreund, Alvin D. Hall, Sharon King Hoge, The Honorable Brenda L. Johnson, Michele Gerber Klein, Helen Little, Christopher Mason, Liane Pei, Faanya Rose, Frank J. Sciame, Jr., HRH Prince Dimitri of Yugoslavia, Lloyd P. Zuckerberg and many more.
The On Stage at the Met Gala, which takes place on the magnificent stage at the opera house in New York, will feature a black-tie dinner, dancing, and performances by extraordinary Met artists.
To join us in celebrating Mrs. Tober on this very special evening, visit www.metopera.org/season/events/
Under the leadership of Peter Gelb, the Met’s Maria Manetti Shrem General Manager, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, the Metropolitan Opera is one of America’s leading performing arts organizations and a vibrant home for the world’s most creative and talented artists, including singers, conductors, composers, orchestra musicians, stage directors, designers, visual artists, choreographers, and dancers. The company presents approximately 200 performances each season of a wide variety of operas, ranging from early masterpieces to contemporary works. In recent years, the Met has launched many initiatives designed to make opera more accessible, most prominently the Live in HD series of cinema transmissions, which dramatically expands the Met audience by allowing select performances to be seen in more than 50 countries around the world.
Photos by: Patrick McMullan
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