It’s official. The numbers are in, and the Met’s first HD transmission of the season, Roméo et Juliette starring Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna, had an international audience of nearly 97,000 — making it the biggest live alternative cinema event ever. The performance was shown on 477 screens in the U.S., where the transmission sold 77,000 tickets. The 100 screens internationally garnered another 20,000 in ticket sales.

Needless to say, Met General Manager Peter Gelb was pleased. “The success of Saturday’s HD transmission is an indication that the public’s interest in these global events is building,” he said. “And the demand for tickets to our transmissions parallels the increase in attendance to the opera house in the first third of the performance season. More people are interested in opera today, which is great news for the Met.”

The 2007-08 HD season continues on New Year’s Day, with Richard Jones’s new production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, sung in English.

7 days to the Hansel premiere!

The story of Hansel and Gretel is so widely known that the plot doesn’t need any introduction. Director Richard Jones, who originally conceived his production for Welsh National Opera several years ago, became familiar with it very early in his life: “Hansel and Gretel was one of the first pieces of theatre I ever saw as a child,” he remembers. “I got taken by my mum and dad to see it, and I do remember it vividly. I can remember as a child making many drawings of it—the Witch’s cottage and the cage in which Hansel was imprisoned. In the production, there’s actually one quote from something that I saw as a child, at the end of Act I.”

In Jones’s view, the piece is all about food, and the lack of it. “And it’s about people consuming other people,” the director explains. “Or people consuming other people’s territory. Elbowing each other out. It’s got images of cuckoos in it and creatures taking over other creatures’ nests. Which is what ultimately the children do with the Witch.” To emphasize the food theme, each of the three acts is set in a kitchen. “From the beginning,” Jones says, “I wanted to do the piece in three styles. So the first style is very realistic, for the children’s house. Like a D.H. Lawrence play at the Royal Court Theatre, or any number of plays you could see here in New York. The second style is a German expressionist style, like Wedekind’s Spring Awakening. And the third style is for the Witch’s kitchen, which is Theatre of the Absurd. It was very much inspired again by something I saw as child. Every year I used to get taken to a pantomime at the London Palladium, and in each of these pantomimes there was always a thing called a Slop Scene where food was thrown about, or people got very messy. I think a lot of memories of seeing those scenes in the pantomimes went into the production of Hansel and Gretel.” Is it still a children’s story? “Oh,” says Jones, “I think it’s a feast for a child really. It’s got lots of very scary things in it. And lots of very sweet things.”

Students, teachers and parents loved watching the transmission at Celia Cruz Bronx High School, and most of them said they were going to come back for the second one in January. There were even some very young kids in the audience, who watched with fascination and clapped enthusiastically after the opera’s arias and duets.

“This is a milestone opportunity, a great way to introduce our community to the wonderful world of opera,” remarked Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez, who was attending the show at The Grand Street Campus High Schools in Brooklyn. “It’s a win-win situation: a win for the Metropolitan Opera and a win for our community and our students, for the future Plácido Domingos or Jessye Normans right here on our campus.” The students agreed: “I can’t believe I got to see that for free!” one of them said. Some were surprised how exciting live opera can be: “I really like the way they captured the audience by going backstage,” said 15-year-old Jamaine. “That was awesome!” The atmosphere was almost like being at the Met: ushers even used xylophones to call people back to their seats at the end of the intermission. While all of the boys seemed to love Anna Netrebko, the girls were especially taken with her white-and-pink dress.

Enthusiastic reports also kept coming in from movie theaters in places as far apart as Nashville, Prague and the Walter Reade Theater right next door to the Met.

Photos: Stephanie Berger/Metropolitan Opera