This was the big night. Peter Gelb opened his second season at the Metropolitan Opera on Monday with a new, presumably daring production of that hum-along hit, Lucia di Lammermoor. But the play wasn’t necessarily the thing.

The impresario extraordinaire literally spread a red carpet across the Lincoln Center plaza. Paparazzi greeted the beautiful people. The top ticket cost $5,000 with a fancy dinner thrown in. The insiders tended to favour jewels, trains and tuxes, though one could spot a sports jacket here and a T-shirt there. The show was beamed to the masses on screens out front and in distant Times Square. Never mind that the alfresco conditions proved more flattering to sight than to sound.