Climate activists angered opera fans at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, by standing up and screaming during an opening night performance of Tannhäuser, Thursday.
Radical climate group Extinction Rebellion, NYC, took credit for the protest on social media, and shared videos of the disruptions.
Halfway through the second act of the performance, several protesters stood up and demanded an end to fossil fuels. One man scolded the audience to “wake up” to the “climate emergency,” before unfolding a black banner that said, “No opera on a dead planet.”
“Wake up! The stream is polluted! The stream is tainted! The stream is poison! This is a climate emergency! This is a climate emergency. There will be no opera on a dead planet!” he shouted.
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The first disruption was timed by the group to coincide with a character’s line in the opera, Extinction Rebellion said.
“The disruption was timed to coincide with the main character’s declaration that ‘love is a spring to be drunk from,’ and highlighted the fact that, contrary to those words spoken on stage, springs are not pure now, because we are in a climate crisis, and our water is contaminated,” the group said in a statement.
As the protesters were ushered out by security, audience members booed and jeered at the activists. The performance was stopped again, when another activist with Extinction Rebellion stood up and shouted a similar message.
Angry audience members demanded the woman leave, shouting “Shut up!” “Get out of here!” “Go outside!” “This isn’t the place!” One person can be seen yanking the protester’s scarf.
Some attendees walked out of the performance and questioned the venue’s security, according to the New York Times.
The Met told Fox News Digital that the performance was stopped for a total of 22 minutes and police were called to remove the protesters.
“Our highest priority was the safety and security of everyone on site. The show continued with the lights at 25% to discourage any other protests,” the Met said.
Extinction Rebellion explained the disruption was intended to highlight that the “climate and ecological crisis threatens everything on our planet, including opera.”
“This and similar actions are the response of a movement that has no other recourse; it must engage in unconventional forms of protest to bring mass attention to the greatest emergency of our time. All normal means of effecting change commensurate with the scale of the catastrophe – voting, petitioning, lobbying, etc. – have failed and failed again. Meanwhile, the science makes clear that we have only a very small time window in which to end fossil fuel use and halt carbon emissions,” the climate group said in a statement.
The activists stressed they “love opera” but they had to disrupt the public as a “last resort” for the climate “emergency.”
“We’re not going to stop disrupting, because nature is only getting started. The orange skies and the flooding in New York City this year are just the beginning,” spokesperson Jack Baldwin said in a statement.
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“If XR doesn’t disrupt, the climate will. Violently. Activists are disrupting peacefully. Nature will disrupt violently,” spokesperson Miles Grant added.
