Metropolitan Opera

The Sputnik chandeliers, which rise to the ceiling as the lights go down

Nearly four thousand seats, a stage machinery system that can move a full set in ninety seconds, and a repertory schedule that puts a different opera on almost every night from September to June. The house moved to Lincoln Center in 1966, and the two Chagall murals in the lobby are visible from the plaza outside through a glass wall five storeys high.

The chandeliers are the signature: twenty-one crystal starbursts that rise to the ceiling as the house lights fade, a piece of theatre that happens before the opera starts.