Music: The Unseen Audience

Most of the Metropolitan Opera's radio listeners have never seen the Diamond Horseshoe, but they help keep it glittering. The Met got a third of its funds from radio fans in its last appeal for help. Curious to know its radio fans' taste in opera, the Met asked 123,000 of them to pick their favorite operas. The choices: 1) A'ida, 2) Carmen, 3) La Traviata. Among operas less frequently heard, listeners picked Hansel and Gretel, Boris Gudunov, and Der Rosenkavalier. (The Met promised to broadcast all six next year.) Notably unchosen: Wagner.

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