www.wonkette.com: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Thursday that the city, in partnership with the Metropolitan Opera, will be organizing a lottery that will give out 70,000 tickets to the opera to New York City residents every year, allowing people who might not otherwise have had the opportunity to go and experience a night at one of the best opera houses in the world.
11 comments:
Always nice to see a good thing happen in America, especially involving the arts! I am, admittedly a little curious to see how they'll restrict the program solely to those who have never been to the opera before (though I understand why that's important), but frankly Mamdani has built up enough goodwill as a politician with me that I'm willing to just trust him. Opera has notoriously ornate and intricate sets, so hopefully this program will open the eyes of young New Yorkers to the beautiful world of set design.
(Also, and I only just discovered this today by going to the Met Opera's website, did YOU know that CMU students have free access to Met Opera on Demand? We can watch a bunch of proshots of Met shows, for free, as long as we're on the school wi-fi. Neat!)
I too may be an evil socialist because I just cannot understand why people have such a huge problem with someone trying to make some art more accessible. I think that in the day and age of 15 second videos that show up on your phone for free whenever you want to, a 3 hour Italian opera can be a hard sell. An even harder sell if the ticket costs half what you’re paying for rent in a month, so the idea of giving away tickets for free to people who have never been is just such a good idea. I’m sure there's so many people out there who love opera and just don't know it. I’m glad there is finally a politician out there who seems actually committed to the idea of making people’s lives better, not just getting reelected. I’m glad there is an evil socialist mayor if it means the government is actually making an effort to preserve the arts, not just make billions of dollars off of evil AI tech companies that are probably just gonna kill us all in the end.
Horrible awful evil socialist man wants to give the chance to experience the beautiful art form of opera to people who would otherwise never be able to get the chance to do so?? What an awful guy. It is kind of insane how much flack Mamdani gets for doing things that are actively bettering a community of people, and then sometimes even people from that community push back and ask "so why are you giving away opera tickets is that not kind of evil?" I could never be a politician I would lose my shit immediately. Other than that I think this is a really cool opportunity especially in a place like New York City where there is so much art and culture, but is some of the hardest to access art and culture ever. You want to go see broadway affordably? Wait in line for hours in the middle of the night. This is extremely inaccessible for people who might have disabilities and I think this giving out free tickets thing is very good.
It is really heartwarming to see that Opera is still important to people and that Mayor Mamdani is making it more accessible for New Yorkers. 70000 people is a lot, so this is definitely going to have an impact on a lot of them–it might even help someone discover a passion they wouldn’t have otherwise. I also think the writing of the article is very funny, you typically don’t really see this level of informal language used in news articles. The title alone caught my attention and the first line being “Well, fuck a Timothée Chalamet” made the article seem lighthearted, which worked in favor here! It also somewhat matches the level of ridiculousness that some of the tweets used in the article have. This was a very entertaining article! I am also very happy with the news that it brought!
How dare this incredibly evil socialist man allow poor people into the opera after they've never been there before, its a terrible shame that he would allow such people such as those who could not afford it. This is an absolute shame and disgrace upon our nation that has built its institutions around making money and being profitable parts of the economy, to allow anyone without the means to attend such an event as the metropolitan opera where they may get close to the amazing artwork of our collective society. In all seriousness its incredible what Mamdani is doing to expand the arts to all New Yorkers, I know without the fre arts opportunities I had at home I would not be attending CMU today and I would have so much less experience and amazement for the arts if it werent for programs like what Mamdani is doing, I hope he can continue and maybe insipire people to follow a path to becoming a designer or technican for the theatre.
It makes me so sad and angry when I hear about people who are upset about programs like this one that are giving people opportunities for things they would normally not be able to. Also the fact that they immediately think that it is their money that is being used for this program (not that I think it would be a bad idea to use taxpayer dollars on things that create more community as well as infrastructure) without doing anymore research, just ready to be mad about it, when the opera is donating the money and is perfectly fine without their money is infuriating. I am very happy though to see that there are a lot of people taking advantage of this opportunity. As someone who is not the biggest fan of opera, I think it is a beautiful art form that should be shared with more people who might really appreciate the art.
I love Mamdani. It is truly unparalleled the work that he is accomplishing right now with the rest of the country in its current state. Bringing the arts to more people by creating not only a one time free ticket pool but a yearly thing that allows 70,000 people to go see an opera at the MET. I was interested to see that Mamdani believes that in making things such as performances more accessible to the general public the younger generation can grow and become more tightly knit. Many people from the younger generations lack a community making it hard to meet new people and establish friendships in new places. Community is essential to any ecosystem including the city of New York and everything that Mamdani is doing elevates and builds upon the concept of community. Especially today I find it incredibly important to see past everyone's view and the online discourse and understand that we really need to ban together and understand each other to truly reach peace.
I thought that I might enjoy this article after reading the title, and boy was I right. We started off strong with an immediate shot at Timothee Chalamet (Has anyone ever told him you can’t spell his name without “The Met”?) and I continued to enjoy all of the authors' takes throughout. I’m used to a lot of emphasis being placed on super credible, overly serious sources of news, but sometimes it can be nice to enjoy more levity while still learning about what’s going on. I especially enjoyed the paragraph about opera being a “total work of art” where every form of art is represented. I’d never heard that before, but I think it speaks to why I’ve always liked opera. I think I love getting to see all the different aspects of art together, and it stands to reason that other people who might have never been before would love it for the same reason.
Yeah It doesn’t look like Timothee Chalamet is ever going to live down that opera and ballet comment but it is honestly justified to keep bringing it up. I absolutely love this initiative of Mamdani’s. It is a great investment into the future and making sure everyone has a chance to experience opera. The Met is such a historical place so it is great that it is accessible to everyone. It is also across the whole season and not for one show in particular so this will open a wide range of stories to New Yorkers. The fact this is also something happening year to year will be great and it is accessible to just anyone who hasn't been there before. Some of the online comments posted within the article are very crazy and I am glad a news site is taking a stand against that. Unfortunately since I am not a New York resident I can not enter into this lottery but I totally would if I could.
I think that this article is a really humorous way to discuss Mamdani’s campaign to bring more people to the Opera. Starting out with “Well, fuck a Timothee Chalamet” in reference to his discussion about Opera being a ‘dying art is a great way to hook a reader into at least skimming the rest of your article. Going further into the article, I love the quick recap of Mamdani’s plan and then going straight into the author, Robyn Pennacchia’s viewpoint on the topic. Using strong words such as “love” establishes an informal relationship with the audience, making the article seem rather like a conversation than a think-piece. Additionally, the discussion on socializing as part of the experience with going to the Opera is a great way to bring in multidisciplinary discussion into the comments of an article. Overall, I love not only the stance that this author takes about the Opera and Mamdani’s plan, but also the humorous writing that makes a point very well.
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