New York's Met aims to make opera more theatrical

NEW YORK, Feb 28 (Reuters) The Metropolitan Opera will introduce theatrical stage directors for the upcoming season in its latest effort to make opera more attractive to mainstream audiences, New York's leading opera house said.

The Met will present seven new productions in the 2007-2008 season, up from six in the current season and the most since 1966, with six of the seven directors making their Met debut.

The new directors will include Broadway's John Doyle and former Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Adrian Noble, the director of several musicals and plays in London's West End.

''In general, we are emphasizing theatrical values in all new productions that we are bringing the Met, exemplified by the wonderful directors,'' the opera company's general manager Peter Gelb told a news conference.

''That is what opera needs and deserves ... and this is what is essential for opera to progress in the 21st Century as a living and vital art form,'' he said.

Gelb, who is shaking up the 123-year-old New York institution, said the number of productions broadcast live in cinemas in the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan would increase from six to eight.

''We would be foolish to begin to think that opera will compete with movies,'' he said, adding the broadcasts were designed to increase exposure and reach a ''broader cultural community.'' Box office sales for the 2006-07 season were up 9 percent over last season, marking the first increase since 2001, Gelb said. Last year efforts to gain new fans included the cinema broadcasts, cutting the cost of cheap tickets and a free live broadcast of Puccini's ''Madama Butterfly,'' directed by filmmaker Anthony Minghella, in Times Square.

Upcoming new operas at the Met include composer Philip Glass's 1980 opera ''Satyagraha'' and productions by Mary Zimmerman directing Donizetti's ''Lucia di Lammermoor,'' John Doyle directing ''Peter Grimes'' and Adrian Noble directing ''MacBeth.'' REUTERS PDM RAI1231