Climate activists interrupted a performance at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Opera House on Thursday evening, November 30, to call attention to the environmental degradation of Earth’s water resources. The demonstration by the New York chapter of the climate emergency group Extinction Rebellion (XR) took place during the opening night revival of Tannhäuser, an 1845 German opera by Richard Wagner that is set to run through December 23.
The disruption to the four-and-a-half-hour production came during the second act in the middle of a performance by Wolfram von Eschenbach, played by Christian Gerharer. At around 9:30 pm, as the characters began singing about a natural spring, three protesters seated in the third-level balconies on either side of the theater immediately responded by unfurling two banners that read “No Opera on a Dead Planet” and chanting that the spring had been tainted due to climate change.
“Our oceans are dying. We must end fossil fuels,” yelled one of the activists stationed in the left balcony. “There is no opera on a dead planet, no food on a dead planet, no art on a dead planet.”
Crew members quickly closed the stage curtains, and video taken from one of the balconies by Hyperallergic shows Met Opera staff forcibly escorting two of the demonstrators away.
Footage from another audience member posted to X shows another demonstrator on the theater’s main floor standing up with an XR sign and shouting that the Earth is “in a climate crisis.” Other videos taken by XR shared with Hyperallergic show audience members grab the demonstrator’s sign and scarf and throw unidentifiable objects at her while telling her to “Shut the f–k up” until staff forcibly escorted her of the theater. XR later confirmed that this protester was escorted out of the building by security.
Police officers arrived at the scene shortly after 10pm. A spokesperson for the New York City Police Department confirmed that no arrests were made.
Representatives for the Met Opera said in an email statement that the performance was stopped for a total of 22 minutes due to the protest. “Our highest priority was the safety and security of everyone on site,” the spokesperson said, adding that the show continued with the lights slightly dimmed to discourage any further actions.
The action was immediately met with mixed reactions from operagoers, with many audience members booing the disruption while others applauded the demonstration. One attendee, a blonde woman in her 30s who did not want to be identified, told Hyperallergic that she thought the action was a “beautiful performance in itself.”
“They’re not desecrating anything. They’re not destroying anything,” she said to the agreement of another, who found the demonstration to be “a valid form of protest.” Others disagreed, with one attendee, a White middle-aged man who did not provide his name, opining that the venue was in “no way appropriate” and pointing to the work of the performers and musicians.
Hyperallergic followed the activists out to the lobby, where a member of Met Opera’s security team approached during an interview with one of the protesters. The security member instructed Hyperallergic to leave the building, despite having a ticket and press pass.
One of the three protesters was John Mark Rozendaal, a New York-based classical musician. “We’re acting like insane people because the society we live in is acting insane,” Rozendaal said outside the theater.
“Today’s action highlights government and corporate neglect of climate and ecological breakdown,” XR stated in a press release, adding that “this crisis is due to the failure of large institutions to recognize the severity of the situation; responsibility does not rest with individuals, but with organizations and systems.”
The action succeeds a demonstration earlier this month in which activists crashed a Christie’s auction in Midtown Manhattan. Another protest by the climate advocacy group that was planned to take place at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in September led the institution to close for the day.
Editor’s note 12/1/23 10am EST: A previous version of this article noted that the protest began during a performance by Heinrich Tannhäuser, portrayed by Andreas Schager; it was Wolfram von Eschenbach, played by Christian Gerharer. The article has been corrected. The story has also been updated with a comment from the Metropolitan Opera House.
