When Agnes Varis, a Metropolitan Opera board member and benefactor, died a year ago, the company lost the person who paid for its heavily discounted rush ticket program.


While callers to the Met were told the program would continue, no official announcement was made about its future. But this week, with the opening night of Sept. 24 looming, the Met said the rush tickets would be available for a seventh season.


The company had to scramble for the money. The Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, said the trust in Ms. Varis’s name declined to finance the entire program, so he approached the board. A group of trustees stepped forward and donated a “significant” amount of money, he said. But it still was not enough to meet the program’s cost, at least $4 million. So the Met provided an undisclosed amount from its own coffers.


“I thought it was important for the program to continue,” Mr. Gelb said. “We have to believe in the future of opera.”


As in the past, 200 prime seats will be available for $20 each for performances on Mondays through Thursdays, with three-quarters on sale at the box office two hours before the curtain, and the rest available to those 65 and over by phone or through the Met’s Web site. The Met will offer $25 tickets through an online lottery for Friday and Saturday performances. (Galas and opening nights are not included.)


Along with the Varis trust, The Met said, those who contributed to the program included Betsy and Ed Cohen; Judith-Ann Corrente; Marlene Hess and her husband, James Zirin; Karen and Kevin Kennedy; Howard and Sarah Solomon; Nicholas F. and Jenny Taubman; and Ann Ziff, the board’s chairman.


The rush program is one way that the Met tries to keep the door open to opera for people who can’t afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a ticket. (The Met’s free outdoor showings during the summer at Lincoln Center, starting on Saturday, and the popular HD movie theater simulcasts serve the same purpose.) Ticket prices at the Met vary widely, although single-ticket costs will be rising on average 7.6 percent this season.


An aisle seat in row S for “Aida” on Nov. 23 goes for $360. (It’s $1,450 for the opening-night gala performance of “L’Elisir d’Amore” on Sept. 24.) Seats in the family circle — top-balcony nosebleed territory — typically go for $25 or $35, and the Met said more than a third of its seats sell for under $100. Parterre tickets for “Carmen” on some nights this season range from $175 to $450.