“We’ve spoken to more than one witness who said they spoke to an individual from out of town who indicated that he was here to sprinkle ashes of a friend, his mentor in opera, during the performance,' Miller said during a press conference Saturday night. 'So that is certainly an area that we are pursuing.”ĭeputy Commissioner of Intelligence & John Miller speaking on incident at Lincoln Center tonight. Police interviewed witnesses and discovered that the man may have been a tourist trying to honor a lost mentor, according to Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller.

Saturday night's performance of 'Guilluame Tell,' an 'epic telling of the William Tell fable' at the Met Opera, was interrupted when a man sprinkled the suspicious powder, causing a commotion that ultimately cancelled the opera, according to police and witnesses on social media.

LINCOLN CENTER - A white, powdery substance found at the Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center Saturday night may have been ashes spread by an audience member to memorialize a dead mentor, police said. Crown Heights, Prospect Heights & Prospect-Lefferts Gardens.

Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens & Red Hook.Micaela Baranello, a musicologist at Smith College in Massachusetts, said some audience members booed when the cancellation was announced and one man chanted, 'I want my money back, I want my money back. But at no point did I feel an actual threat.' Hayden, who was seated in the 11th row back, added, 'The idea that they said that it was a technical error, when I was maybe 15 feet away from a potential dangerous substance, that kind of irks me a little bit. 'As we were exiting the building, I noticed the counterterrorism unit going into the building.' 'Everybody kind of slowly walked out,' said Dylan Hayden of Toronto. The Met canceled Saturday night's performance of 'L'Italiana in Algeri,' another Rossini opera, because of the investigation.Īudience members at 'Guillaume Tell' described confusion as the intermission went on longer than usual.Ī Met representative at first announced that a technical issue was causing the delay, then returned a few minutes later to announce that the fourth act would not be performed. Police initially said one person at the opera house requested medical attention.

Met opera powder