Peter Gelb
Peter Gelb’s career has followed a singular arc that began with his teenage years as an usher at the Metropolitan Opera and led to his appointment, in August 2006, as the storied company’s 16th general manager.
As the Maria Manetti Shrem General Manager, Gelb has overseen the launch of a number of initiatives aimed at revitalizing opera and connecting it to a wider audience. One of his fundamental goals has been to recruit the world’s great theater directors to enhance the theatricality of the Met’s productions and complement the company’s extraordinary musical standards.
His leadership has introduced The Met: Live in HD, a Peabody and Emmy Award–winning series of live performance transmissions shown in high definition in movie theaters. The series has sold more than 29 million tickets since its inception in December 2006 and reaches more than 2,200 screens in more than 70 countries across six continents. The Met’s HD programs have raised global awareness of opera, inspiring other institutions throughout the world that are in need of revitalization.
Gelb has made a priority of revitalizing the repertory with new productions of both classic operas and modern masterpieces. The company has also reimagined the theatrical and dramatic possibilities of opera’s canonical works with more than 80 new stagings by some of the world’s greatest theater, film, and opera directors. In addition, Mr. Gelb has created a series of abridged, English-language adaptations of classic operas, perfect for audiences of all ages.
He has also expanded the Met’s audiences with the launch of Metropolitan Opera Radio, an around-the-clock channel broadcasting live performances each week as well as historic performances from the Met’s vast radio archive and with The Met Opera on Demand streaming service and free live streaming of performances on its website once a week.
Prior to his career at The Met, Gelb was an award-winning producer of films, recordings, radio broadcasts, telecasts, concert events, operas, and festivals, and president of Sony Classical.