Have you ever dreamed of being a little rat at the opera and sneaking backstage at one of the most prestigious institutions in the opera world, the Metropolitan Opera in New York? The New York opera takes you behind the scenes through its social networks, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and even Tik Tok. Valentine Jongen tells us about it.
Social networks have become an essential communication tool for cultural institutions. And the Metropolitan Opera in New York has understood this well, since it is active on four of the main social networks. On their Facebook page, the MET has more than 660,000 subscribers with whom the institution mainly shares photos and videos related to its productions. This is how (for example) on May 24, the MET published on Facebook a video shot during the intermission of a production of Lucia di Lammermore by Donizetti where the soprano who sang Lucia, the American Nadine Sierra ), answered questions from subscribers.
On Twitter, the MET has more than 250,000 subscribers and shares photos with short texts echoing their news. On Instagram, the MET Opera has more than 480,000 subscribers and this network is really dedicated to less official communication. We obviously discover photos of the productions but also behind the scenes of the MET
TikTok is the youngest of the band, created in 2016, it is a social network for sharing videos only. Videos in vertical format and quite short. The MET launched on TikTok last October, published only 5 videos, one of which already has more than 50,000 views. And it’s a video where we see the American countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo having his hair removed for the production of “Akhnaten” by Philippe Glass. This same video was also posted on the MET’s Instagram account where it has more than 160,000 views. But rest assured, even if the hair removal of a countertenor seems to fascinate the web, in the most viewed videos on the RS of the MET Opera we find the soprano Nadine Sierra with her bloody dress by Lucia di Lammermoor, the baritone Polish Artur Ruciński who has fake tattoos applied for almost an hour for this same production of Lucia, or, again, with more than 260,000 views, a video of Polish countertenor Jakub Jozef Orlinski who takes a “break” between two break-dancing rehearsals in front of Lincoln Center.
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