Froemke Wins HT2FF Audience Prize for 'The Opera House'

“The Opera House,” Susan Froemke’s 2017 documentary about the history of the Metropolitan Opera from its original home on 39th Street to its grand opening in 1966 at Lincoln Center, won the Brown Harris Stevens Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival, which was held at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor from Nov. 30 through Dec. 4.

The film, which had its world premiere in October at the New York Film Festival, covers not only the Met’s five-decade search for a new home but also the creation of Lincoln Center and its effect on neighborhood residents. The film includes interviews with Leontyne Price, who sang at the opening night in 1966, and archival footage of an interview with Robert Moses, the force behind Lincoln Center and numerous other “slum clearance” projects that displaced people from their homes and neighborhoods.