Several years ago, the Met Opera, faced with dwindling audiences, responded to the concerns of its subscribers and finally began offering no-fee exchanges. This year the company has gone one better and is now offering Flex Subscriptions. It explained the new option in the letter accompanying next season's renewal notice as follows:
"Also new for 2019-20, you have the option of purchasing a Flex Subscription as an alternative to the traditional Series Subscription. Rather than exchanging operas in your series, you can now curate the 2019-20 lineup exactly as you'd like by selecting between six and nine operas in the season."
This is truly wonderful news for loyal subscribers. No longer must we queue in long lines to exchange unwanted tickets and risk discovering that tickets to our favorite operas are no longer available. Now we can simply choose those performances we most wish to attend and then wait for the tickets to arrive. The only drawback that I can see is that subscribers are no longer guaranteed the same seats for each performance. For me, at least, this is not a major problem.
I've already chosen the six operas I wish to attend in the coming season. They are, in chronological order: Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice starring Hei-Kyung Hong and Jamie Barton; a new production of Philip Glass's Akhnaten; The Queen of Spades starring Lise Davidsen; a new production of Handel's Agrippina conducted by Harry Bicket and starring Joyce DiDonato; a new production of Wagner's Der Fliegende Hollander conducted by Valery Gergiev and starring Bryn Terfel; and finally Donizetti's Maria Stuarda starring Diana Damrau. With such great operas, conductors and singers, it should definitely be a wonderful season.
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