How to Enter the Met’s Free Opera Ticket Lottery
Time Out Worldwide • • entertainment
Key Points:
- The Metropolitan Opera and Mayor Zohran Mamdani have launched "Opera for All," a program offering 70,000 free tickets to New Yorkers during the 2026–27 season, with 10,000 tickets released monthly via lottery.
- The program targets New Yorkers who have not purchased a Met Opera ticket since 2019, aiming to attract new and lapsed attendees with seats available throughout the theater, excluding standing room.
- The season features well-known operas like La Bohème and Macbeth, as well as Lincoln in the Bardo, with the goal of making opera more accessible and less intimidating to a broader audience.
- The initiative is supported by outreach through public schools, NYCHA, public libraries, CUNY, and other community partners, and the Met Opera plans to continue the program in future seasons.
- This effort echoes a 1943 initiative by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to make opera affordable and accessible, now updated to provide free access to one of Lincoln Center’s grandest cultural institutions.
