In a season that has followed wave after wave of the coronavirus, there were times when the Metropolitan Opera was on the brink of being cancelled.
There was a time when an evil stepsister in “Cinderella” tested positive shortly before a performance, and the Met had to hire a soprano from another production to sing the part from the wings while a dancer performed it onstage.
And there was a time when five of the main performers in “Hamlet” were out at the same time, but covers — as the company calls its priceless understudies — intervened to make sure the show went on.
“We had cover for covers,” said Tera Willis, the head of the wigs and makeup department, remembering how she would sit a last-minute performer next to a pile of wigs and try one after the other until something fit.
The winter wave of Omicron forced many Broadway shows to pause; New York City Ballet and Radio City Music Hall had to end their popular holiday shows before Christmas; and some Carnegie Hall concerts were postponed.
But the Metropolitan Opera went ahead with a series of tightly enforced Covid policies, a robust system of covers – and a bit of luck. As it concluded its season on Saturday night, it was one of the few major opera companies in the world not to miss a curtain this season due to the pandemic.
Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Met, praised the company’s strict vaccine, masking and testing policies, extensive roster of artists it can call on, and a new ethos around the sniffles.
“If a singer had a cold before the pandemic, I would urge him to sing anyway,” Gelb said. “Now we are in a position to tell people who have a cold to stay as far away from the theater as possible.”
It’s not that the company has escaped the virus. There were nearly 200 opera performances and nearly 150 Covid-related cancellations from lead singers and conductors over the course of the season. But the Met was able to fill out an extensive list of covers and other artists.
On Saturday, The Met put on its last operas of a rewarding but – as many contributors will admit – exhausting season. And the last day was to be a marathon: a matinee of Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress” and an evening performance of Verdi’s “Rigoletto” before stagehands had less than 48 hours to get the opera house ready for the run of American’s “Don Quixote” Ballet Theatre”, open Monday evenings.
13:05 o’clock
The curtain goes up for ‘The Rake’s Progress’.
Backstage, John Coleman, a stage manager, gives a thumbs up to bass James Creswell, who nods that he’s done.
“Here we start,” said Cristobel Langan, another stage manager, repeating the three words she says ritually at the beginning of each opera.
The orchestra begins to swell, and Langan follows her, turning pages of the score for her.
It’s been about a month since Langan was back to full-time work since he contracted the coronavirus – one of 860 cases at the Met since the start of the season. The virus forced her to miss two months of work. During the Omicron wave in late December and early January, about 100 people a week tested positive, according to the company.
“We were all doing each other’s work just to get the show going,” Langan said.
4:16 PM
‘The Rake’s Progress’ concludes.
The curtain falls, the performers on stage hug each other. At the same time, dozens of stagehands in safety helmets pour in to break down the set.
They have three and a half hours to clean it up and build the opulent Duke’s Palace for “Rigoletto” instead. Stagehands pack fake greenery in garbage bags and push a vintage-style Mercedes-Benz off the stage. They are loading four 40-foot shipping containers of game pieces that will be trucked to a wharf near Newark Liberty International Airport, where approximately 1,500 containers full of the Met sets will be stored.
Not all “Rake’s” sets will be loaded on Saturday — just enough so that “Rigoletto” can take the stage at 8 p.m. and American Ballet Theater can take over a few hours later.
“It’s a race against time,” said Mr Gelb.
7:30 pm
Staff prepare for the last opera of the season.
Vivian Goldring, who has been a Met ushers for more than 30 years, wears the Met ushers’ black coat, with its red lapels and gold buttons, and points onlookers to their seats.
Goldring, an 82-year-old opera enthusiast, spends most of her time as a usher in the same spot, watching decades of seasons from her seat in the Dress Circle. Over a month ago, while she was watching Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” a Met employee walked into the opera house to tell her to leave.
“I said, ‘Why?'” Goldring recalls. “And they said, ‘Because you have Covid.’ †
8:04 PM
Next opera: ‘Rigoletto’ begins.
Backstage, baritone Quinn Kelsey, who missed several of his scheduled appearances in the title role of “Rigoletto” due to a coronavirus infection, waits in the wings, dressed in his long-tailed velvet coat and ridiculous red cheeks.
Margo Maier-Moul, stage manager, calls to ask how many patrons are still queuing for the opera. The vaccination checks had delayed the process before the show, but she’d been ordered to hold the curtain if there was a big line.
Three days after spinal surgery, Gelb has appeared at the opera house to deliver a pre-show speech, thanking spectators for their support.
“The last thing we want to do is ever let you down,” Gelb tells them.
10:56 pm
Confetti falls and opera gives way to ballet.
As the cast of “Rigoletto” takes their final bow, confetti — worth eight pounds — shoots into the theater and rains down on the audience.
Within seconds, stagehands pull the comforter and pillows off a bed in the center of the stage, pull up strings of lights, and drill up the stage’s wooden slats.
11:30 pm
American Ballet Theater prepares to move in.
Elsewhere in the theater, the ballet stagehands wait for the signal to begin their work. For days, they’ve been loading set pieces, hiding them in corners of the cavernous opera house so they can find them after the Met is unloaded.
“It will be just Easter Sunday,” says Vincent Roca, production director of the Ballet Theater. Due to the pandemic, it has been three years since the company had a spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House.
Hidden below the stage level, the towering windmill and wooden horse of “Don Quixote” sit amid a maze of set pieces. Opera and ballet stage masters work through the night, transforming the theater into storybook Spain.
“Often,” said Jim Pizzo, the Met’s assistant carpenter, “the best show is backstage.”