Powder sprinkled into opera pit may have been human ashes

A powdery substance a man sprinkled into the orchestra pit at New York's Metropolitan Opera may have been an opera lover's ashes, police said on Saturday.

The freakish incident during an afternoon performance of Rossini's Guillaume Tell forced Met officials to cancel the rest of the show as well as an evening performance of a second opera.

John Miller, the New York Police Department's deputy commissioner in charge of intelligence and counterterrorism, said several audience members said a man told them he was there to sprinkle the ashes of a friend, his mentor in the opera.