No one had seemed more excited for the pair of Rossini operas at the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday than Dallas opera buff Roger Kaiser, who police believe inadvertently created a terrorism scare that forced the Met to cut its matinee short and cancel its evening performance.
On Facebook, where Kaiser describes himself as a self-employed jewelry maker, he even posed for a selfie with an apple on his head -- a nod to William Tell, the title character in Saturday's matinee, Guillaume Tell, who shoots an apple off his son's head.
But his Facebook page also describes a more unusual operagoing ritual, which investigators now say led to the events that stopped the show at the Met: dispersing the ashes of a friend, whom he described as an "opera mentor," at opera houses around the country.
"It was just part of our deal that I would leave bits of him in all the houses I visit," reads a message attributed to Kaiser in a Facebook post last month about a trip he had taken during the summer to a Colorado opera house. "The MET is next, late next month."
Kaiser did not immediately respond to emails, Facebook messages, a text message or a phone call seeking comment.
It was during the second intermission at Saturday's matinee of Guillaume Tell that a man was spotted sprinkling a white powdery substance into the Met's orchestra pit, around the timpani and the conductor's podium, before walking out.
Musicians reported it, and, amid fears that the powder could have been a dangerous substance such as anthrax, the remainder of the opera was canceled so police could investigate. As the investigation continued, the Met's Saturday night performance, of Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri, was canceled as well.
On Saturday night, police announced that they were investigating whether the powdery substance was human remains being scattered at the Met.
John J. Miller, the deputy police commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, said at a news conference that the police had identified a man who had spoken about sprinkling ashes there and that they were trying to contact him. Miller said the act may have violated the city's health code, but there was no criminal intent.
Miller did not name the man, but law enforcement officials later said it was Kaiser, who had been found and interviewed Saturday night.
As the Met audience was sent home before the final act of Tell, the police who had descended on the opera house did a field test that determined the substance was not dangerous, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.
The police also learned from an audience member about a man -- Kaiser it turned out -- who had mentioned spreading the ashes of a friend at opera houses around the country, the official said.
The police determined where Kaiser had been sitting, got his name and cellphone number through the box office and tracked him down, the official said. After running Kaiser's name through a terrorism database and finding no matches, the police interviewed him at a bed-and-breakfast in Manhattan, the official said.
There, Kaiser told them he had scattered the ashes of a friend who had died several years ago.
"He's not a bad guy," the police official said. "He's really just a friend who lost his friend and is following out his wishes."
Investigators said Kaiser told them he tries to scatter the ashes discreetly so as not to cause alarm. He had walked out of the opera house to go to dinner and hoped to return for the evening performance, the official said.
The police, in consultation with the Met, decided not to charge Kaiser with a crime.
As a precaution, the substance was sent to a lab for further testing to confirm it was human remains.
Michael Cooper and Al Baker, The New York Times
Posted by Chris Siron, Breaking News editor
