NEW YORK (AP) — Metropolitan Opera season attendance dropped slightly following the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown that coincided with a decrease in tourists to New York.
The Met sold 72% of capacity, matching 2023-24 and down from its 75% projection.
“We were on track to continue to improve,” Met general manager Peter Gelb said Friday. “We were disappointed by the sales in the last two months of the season — our projections were much higher and I attribute the fact that we didn’t achieve our sales goals to a significant drop in tourism."
New York City Tourism & Conventions last month reduced its 2025 international visitor projection by 17%, the Met said.
International buyers accounted for 11% of sales, down from the Met's projection of 16% and from about 20% before the coronavirus pandemic.
“It's unfortunate, but this is the times in which we live,” Gelb said.
The Met said factoring ticket discounts, it realized 60% of potential income, down from 64% in 2023-24 but up from 57% in 2022–23.
“We were able to sell an equal amount of tickets the last year, but there were more discounted tickets,” Gelb said. “This really was the result of the last two months of the season.”
There were 76,000 new ticket buyers, a drop from 85,000 in 2023-24, and the average age of single ticket buyers was 44, the same as in the previous season and a drop from 50 before the pandemic. Subscriptions accounted for just 7% of ticket sales, down from 12-15% before the pandemic,
Gelb said economic uncertainty impacted sales for next season.
“The stock market jumping up and down made people feel insecure,” he said. “In one week we saw an enormous decline in our advance for next season. Then it picked up again.”
Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin earned $2,045,038 in the year end last July 31, up from $1,307,583, in the previous fiscal year, according to the company’s tax return released Friday. Gelb earned $1,395,216, roughly the same as his $1,379,032 in 2022-23,and he also accrued $798,205 listed as retirement or deferred compensation.
Assets declined by about $40 million to $467 million, primarily because of an endowment draw following the pandemic.
Among individual productions last season, the highest percentage of tickets sold were for the English-language version of Mozart's “The Magic Flute” and a new staging of Verdi's “Aida,” both at 82%, followed by the company premiere of Jake Heggie's “Moby-Dick” at 81%
Other new productions included Strauss' “Salome” (74%), John Adams' “Antony and Cleopatra” (65%), Osvaldo Golijov's “Ainadamar” (61%) and Jeanine Tesori’s “Grounded” (50%).
The best-selling revivals were Puccini's “Tosca” (78%), Tchaikovsky's “Pique Dame (The Queen of Spades)” and Puccini's La Bohème (77% each), Beethoven's “Fidelio” and Rossini's “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” (76% each) and Mozart's “Le Nozze di Figaro” (71%).
Lagging were Strauss' “Die Frau ohne Schatten” (68%0, Verdi's “Rigoletto” (64%), Offenbach's “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” and the German-language version of Mozart's “Die Zauberflöte” (62% each) and Verdi's “Il Trovatore” (59%).
FILE - People appear in Josie Robertson Plaza in front of The Metropolitan Opera house at Lincoln Center in New York on March 12, 2020. . (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranians could call abroad on mobile phones Tuesday for the first time since communications were halted during a crackdown on nationwide protests in which activists said at least 646 people have been killed.
Several people in Tehran were able to call The Associated Press and speak to a journalist there. The AP bureau in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was unable to call those numbers back. The witnesses said SMS text messaging still was down and that internet users in Iran could connect to government-approved websites locally but nothing abroad.
The witnesses gave a brief glimpse into life on the streets of the Iranian capital over the four and a half days of being cut off from the world. They described seeing a heavy security presence in central Tehran.
Anti-riot police officers, wearing helmets and body armor, carried batons, shields, shotguns and tear gas launchers. They stood watch at major intersections. Nearby, the witnesses saw members of the Revolutionary Guard's all-volunteer Basij force, who similarly carried firearms and batons. Security officials in plainclothes were visible in public spaces as well.
Several banks and government offices were burned during the unrest, they said. ATMs had been smashed and banks struggled to complete transactions without the internet, the witnesses added.
However, shops were open, though there was little foot traffic in the capital. Tehran's Grand Bazaar, where the demonstrations began Dec. 28, was to open Tuesday. However, a witness described speaking to multiple shopkeepers who said the security forces ordered them to reopen no matter what. Iranian state media had not acknowledged that order.
The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Many remain concerned about a possible military strike by the U.S., even as President Donald Trump has said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington.
“My customers talk about Trump’s reaction while wondering if he plans a military strike against the Islamic Republic,” said shopkeeper Mahmoud, who gave just his first name out of concerns for his safety. “I don’t expect Trump or any other foreign country cares about the interests of Iranians.”
Reza, a taxi driver who also gave just his first name, said protests also remain front of mind for many.
“People — particularly young ones — are hopeless but they talk about continuing the protests," he said.
Meanwhile, it appeared that security service personnel were searching for Starlink terminals as people in northern Tehran reported authorities raiding apartment buildings with satellite dishes. While satellite television dishes are illegal, many in the capital have them in their homes and officials broadly had given up on enforcing the law in recent years.
On the streets, people also could be seen challenging plainclothes security officials, who were stopping passersby at random.
State television also read a statement about mortuary and morgue services being free — a signal some likely charged high fees for the release of bodies amid the crackdown.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to the Qatar-funded satellite news network Al Jazeera in an interview aired Monday night, said he continued to communicate with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff.
The communication “continued before and after the protests and are still ongoing," Araghchi said. However, “Washington’s proposed ideas and threats against our country are incompatible.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Iran’s public rhetoric diverges from the private messaging the administration has received from Tehran in recent days.
“I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages,” Leavitt said. “However, with that said, the president has shown he’s unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran.”
Meanwhile, pro-government demonstrators flooded the streets Monday in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, which appeared to number in the tens of thousands, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
Others cried out, “Death to the enemies of God!” Iran’s attorney general has warned that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an “enemy of God,” a death-penalty charge.
Trump announced Monday that countries doing business with Iran will face 25% tariffs from the United States. Trump announced the tariffs in a social media posting, saying they would be “effective immediately.”
It was action against Iran for the protest crackdown from Trump, who believes exacting tariffs can be a useful tool in prodding friends and foes on the global stage to bend to his will.
Brazil, China, Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are among economies that do business with Tehran.
Trump said Sunday that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.
“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”
Iran, through the country’s parliamentary speaker, warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if Washington uses force to protect demonstrators.
More than 10,700 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the latest death toll early Tuesday. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 512 of the dead were protesters and 134 were security force members.
With the internet down in Iran, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government hasn’t offered overall casualty figures.
This frame grab from videos taken between Jan. 9 and Jan. 11, 2026, and circulating on social media purportedly shows images from a morgue with dozens of bodies and mourners after crackdown on the outskirts of Iran's capital, in Kahrizak, Tehran Province. (UGC via AP)
A picture of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is set alight by protesters outside the Iranian Embassy in London, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media shows protesters dancing and cheering around a bonfire as they take to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)
FILE - Protesters march on a bridge in Tehran, Iran, on Dec. 29, 2025. (Fars News Agency via AP, File)
