It bears repeating: at the Met, the most expensive opera tickets are indeed expensive, but you can stand behind the orchestra section — or even sit at the upper reaches of the house — for less than the cost of an IMAX showing at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 multiplex up the road. This persistent fiction of ‘elitism,’ and contemporary classical music’s supposed inaccessibility, is one of the strongest propagandistic tools ever devised by the titans of corporate pop culture. They would prefer you not ever cost-compare a Family Circle seat to ‘Satyagraha’ alongisde a 3D screening of ‘Transformers 3.’

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An important aside from Seth Colter Walls’ dispatch on Satyagraha at the Met, Philip Glass, and Friday’s Occupy Lincoln Center protest.

Also worth noting:

Among the populist moves the Met has made in recent years is its “Live in HD” program, beamed to movie theaters in areas of the country that may not have so many top-flight opera houses currently operating. Though apt to pursue safe programming bets that sate the desire of traditional opera fans, the Met’s administration places the occasional bet on a piece of radical culture like Satyagraha, which played in movie theaters on November 19th. That broadcast will have an encore next Wednesday, December 7th. It’s a good time to be reminded that not all forms of cultural occupation necessitate standing out in the cold.

As I wrote last month in my column, AMC Theatres, the monopoly theater owner in Springfield, decided not to screen Satyagraha here, even as it relented on other cuts to local presentations of the “Live in HD” series. So if you want to catch that 6:30 p.m. Dec. 7 encore, you’ll have to do so in Champaign or Peoria.