After the season opens on Sept. 24, 50 discounted tickets will be set aside for senior citizens who will no longer have to elbow out brawnier contenders for the Metropolitan Opera's $20 seats.
In a program started last year and paid for by Agnes Varis, a friend of the singer and a Met board member, 200 steeply discounted orchestra seats are set aside for every show, Monday through Thursday. (The discount isn't available for certain performances, such as galas and opening night.)
Even if OC would like to see some sort of program to make opera more popular and more freely available to young people -- unless we want it to be extinct in about 20 years, and that would suXXorz because then we wouldn't know what to do with our time and with our Internet connection, without teh opera -- OC wishes to thank the generosity of la signora Varis, and kudos to her attention to the opera oldskoolers needs.