“You can’t say that word in the theater!” exclaimed the actress Julianna Margulies, only half-joking, as she stood near the Metropolitan Opera House’s glimmering chandeliers.
Tuesday marked the opening night of the new season of the Met, where the crowd included the actresses Maggie Gyllenhaal and Gwendoline Christie, the comedian Chelsea Handler, the actor F. Murray Abraham and the conductor Gustavo Dudamel.
They had turned out to see a new production of “Macbeth,” Verdi’s thrilling take on the immortal Shakespearean tale of the scheming couple determined to seize power at any cost.
A reporter had just made the mistake of saying the opera’s name out loud.
“You have to call it ‘the Scottish play,’” Margulies, who wore a long black dress, said. She was referring to the theatrical superstition that saying the name “Macbeth” inside a theater, other than as called for in the script, will bring bad luck to a production.
Fortunately, no tragedy befell the nearly 4,000 audience members who came to see the Met’s first new “Macbeth” production in nearly 20 years. For nearly three and a half hours, a crowd sat mostly enthralled as the soprano Lise Davidsen, who has become one of opera’s biggest box-office draws, hit soaring high notes as the power-mad Lady Macbeth opposite the baritone Quinn Kelsey, as the Scottish king haunted by the ghosts of his murderous ascent to the throne.
The gala, which is an annual stop on the social calendar for both New York City arts aficionados and local luminaries, kicked off with a cocktail reception across the scalloped balconies in the opera house’s red-and-gold grand lobby.
The actresses Frances McDormand and Sigourney Weaver chatted as they sipped Champagne and ate miniature crab cakes in front of an arched glass façade overlooking the Lincoln Center plaza. The countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, who will soon star in the world premiere of “Lincoln in the Bardo” at the Met, and that opera’s composer, Missy Mazzoli, greeted well-wishers near the stairs. The actresses Juliana Canfield and Andrea Riseborough, dressed in glimmering gold-and-black gowns, held court at opposite ends of the Grand Tier.
The small talk continued after the performance when, around 10 p.m., a crowd of more than 700 operagoers, among them the actresses Ariana DeBose, Katie Holmes, Patricia Clarkson and Kate Walsh, filled in candlelit, pink flower-topped tables in the next-door David Geffen Hall to refuel with pear salads, branzino and coconut and ube pandan panna cotta.
The night raised more than $4.7 million for the Met, a needed shot in the arm after a lucrative agreement with Saudi Arabia fell through earlier this year, which would have brought opera to the kingdom for three weeks each winter. The deal had been expected to bring the Met more than $100 million, and alleviate some of the organization’s longstanding budget woes.
Speaking to the crowd during dinner, Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, remarked on the timeliness of the new production of “Macbeth.”
“Art, at its best, is often a mirror to the times in which we live,” he said. “‘Macbeth’ is a message to all those who face oppression to never give up the fight for freedom and justice.”
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