“The Met: Live in HD kicked off its tenth anniversary season Saturday with a live transmission of Verdi’s popular opera Il Trovatore with an estimated attendance of 84,500 in North America earning a gross of $2 million. . . . Delayed showings throughout Asia, Australia, Dubai, Madagascar, New Zealand and South Africa, and encore performances in North America and Europe, are expected to boost worldwide attendance of Il Trovatore to more than 265,000.” 

To put these justifiably proud figures from the Met’s press department in terms even La Cieca can understand, this weekend Il Trovatore outgrossed the The Walk, a new IMAX film directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ben Kingsley. If HD attractions were considered in the same category as theatrical releases, Trovatore would have cracked the top 10 in US grosses this weekend.

Or think of it this way: 265,000 is the rough equivalent of the audiences at approximately 75 live performances at the Met, or about a third of the current season. And finally, the total number of people who have seen or will see this Trovatore HD is greater than the number of people who have seen that opera live at the Met since… 1999.