Opera: The Sold-Out Castle

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Business at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera, the highest-priced theater in Manhattan, is booming like a basso profundo. Since opening its new house in September, the Met has been 100% sold out and has turned away thousands of ticket seekers, who are 100% furious. But the smell of success is not sweet. Last week, pleading "a gross miscalculation" in budgeting, the Met announced that it must hike ticket prices by roughly 20%, or an increase from $13 to $15.50 for the top-priced seats. The reason, explained the Met's board of directors, is that, like dreamy-eyed newlyweds, they had underestimated the cost of housing by some $3,000,000. The error was forgivable. "We are like a family that moved from a cottage into a castle," said William Hadley, the Met's director of finance. "The upkeep of the castle has proven staggering."