Editing Metropolitan Opera (section)

===Metropolitan Opera House, Broadway===
{{main|Metropolitan Opera House (39th Street)}}

The first Metropolitan Opera House opened on October 22, 1883, with a performance of ''[[Faust (opera)|Faust]]''.<ref name="Met Opera Family-1883">{{cite web| title=Opening Night: Faust|date=October 22, 1883| url=http://archives.metoperafamily.org/Imgs/Faust1883openingnight.htm| website=Met Opera Family| publisher=Metropolitan Opera Archives| archive-date=October 17, 2017| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171017012549/http://archives.metoperafamily.org/Imgs/Faust1883openingnight.htm| url-status=live}}</ref> It was located at 1411 [[Broadway (Manhattan)|Broadway]] between 39th and 40th Streets and was designed by [[J. Cleaveland Cady]]. Gutted by fire on August 27, 1892, the theater was immediately rebuilt, reopening in the fall of 1893. Another major renovation was completed in 1903. The theater's interior was extensively redesigned by the architects [[Carrère and Hastings]]. The familiar red and gold interior associated with the house dates from this time. The old Met had a seating capacity of 3,625 with an additional 224 standing room places.

The theater was noted for its elegance and excellent acoustics and it provided a glamorous home for the company. Its stage facilities, however, were found to be severely inadequate from its earliest days. Over the years many plans for a new opera house were explored and abandoned, including a proposal to incorporate a new Metropolitan Opera House into the [[construction of Rockefeller Center]]. It was only with the development of Lincoln Center that the Met was able to build itself a new home. The Met held a lavish farewell gala performance for the old house on April 16, 1966. The theater closed after a short season of ballet later in the spring of 1966 and was demolished in 1967.