Photo by Claudio Papapietro
Bayreuth's famously uncomfortable seats, only approximated locally this summer by Merola's new (otherwise excellent) home at Everett Middle School, will never be upgraded to what's coming to the Metropolitan Opera, and possibly to many other venues. The secret of Bayreuth's superb acoustics is all the wood; the comfy seats of the future are fabric.
The cushioned wonder-seats, reports Jennifer Maloney in The Wall Street Journal, will be installed through most of the 3,800-capacity Met over the next 10 years (ouch!), but the first batch of 400 will be in place this month:
The Met follows Broadway theater owner Jordan Roth in using cushions developed by the British company NuBax. They are designed to tilt the pelvis forward and straighten the spine, increasing blood flow and, therefore, attention spans. They also allow a person to sit further back, giving the feeling of more legroom."I'm a guy who slouches all the time," said James Blumenfeld, property master for the Met. "It's at no extra cost to us, so why not?"
Mr. Blumenfeld's crew is responsible for movable props such as swords and wine bottles and for moving musical instruments into the pit before each performance. And each August, the crew dismantles roughly 400 seats and rebuilds them with new cushions and mohair covers custom-dyed a color known as Met Opera red.
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The Met's seats won't look different after the operation. In the NuBax design, a specially shaped piece of denser foam is inserted inside the seat cushion.
The design has been adapted for cars, planes, office chairs and movie theaters. It is used by several theaters on London's West End.
"It kids your pelvis into thinking you're standing up," said [NuBax executive Ian] Moore. He noted that when the spine is in the more natural position encouraged by the NuBax cushion, people shift less in their seats.
Mr. Moore said that typical theater seats cost $120 each to refurbish and the NuBax inserts cost about $5 extra per seat, for a total of $125 per seat. The Met, which is doing the job in-house, said it's spending the same amount it would have otherwise, and declined to say how much it budgets for seat refurbishment.
The new seats won't be marketed or priced differently, said Met spokesman Peter Clark [hurrah! one Met extra that won't cost more].