“Are you kidding? This is the Metropolitan Opera!”
What brings one out to the Metropolitan Opera Opening Night Gala needs no explanation, according to F. Murray Abraham. The 2024-2025 season at the Met kicked off just after 6:30 p.m. on Monday, with the performance of “Grounded,” a contemporary English-language opera with music by Jeanine Tesori and featuring mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo.
The night began an hour prior with a cocktail reception in the lobby. As always, the opening night gala brought opera superfans and A-listers out. Christine Baranski, Patricia Clarkson, Susan Sarandon, Eva Amurri, Edie Falco, Jonathan Groff, Ellen Burstyn, Josh Charles and Sophie Flack, Peter Dinklage, Susie Essman, Amy Ryan, Juliana Canfield and Edmund Donovan, Sarah Pidgeon, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Sydney Lemmon, Zoe Chao, Melora Hardin, Margarita Levieva, Zoe Winters, Georgina Chapman and Cynthia Rowley were all in attendance Monday, dressed to the nines and ready for the show.
“You look great!” photographers complimented Clarkson as they snapped her picture. She replied with her age — “64!” — as she posed.
Winters, best known for playing Kerry on “Succession,” tossed her coat onto the floor out of view for a photo-op. Rowley arrived with a creative spin on black tie, wearing a long skirt with the top half made of denim; she hooked her thumbs into the belt loops to pose.
It was a mother-daughter night out for Sarandon and Amurri, though they arrived separately. “Stereophonic” star Pidgeon brought her sister Annie as her plus-one. “Will you get one of me and my sister?” she requested after posing solo. Christine Baranski was opera-perfection in white opera gloves and an equally statuesque white gown.
Abraham was stopped on his way into the cocktail reception by a fellow opera fan. “I’ve been coming since the ’80s,” the patron told him.
The “White Lotus” actor too always makes time for the Met Opera.
“Whenever I’m in town, I’m here,” he said.
As for the night’s highlight?
“I’m excited about hearing some original music,” he said. “There’s nothing like it.”
