On this day in 1966, sixty years ago, the doors of the new Metronomes

Let me start again, plainly. Stand on the plaza first. Five travertine arches, tall and thin-shouldered, Wallace K. Harrison's design, and behind their glass two Chagall murals holding the lobby light like held breath. Inside, the chandeliers: clusters of brass rods and crystal, made in Austria and given to the house, which rise toward the gold ceiling in the minutes before the music. Three thousand nine hundred and seventy-five seats, the largest repertory opera house anywhere. The old house of 1883, down at Broadway and 39th, had closed the spring before.

The evening opened with the world premiere of Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, with Leontyne Price as Cleopatra. Barber took the reviews hard, and the opera has had a long slow second life since; that is often how it goes with first nights in a building that is also having its first night.

But I keep thinking about who hung the chandeliers. Someone set the motors and counted the rise in seconds. Someone cut and matched travertine so the veins ran on across a joint. Someone stretched Chagall's canvases, and someone washed that glass before the cars arrived. None of them are in the programme. They are in the room.