Highlights of the Met’s 2026-27 Season
Dear readers, welcome back! The Met’s 2026-27 season is almost upon us. With only 17 operas, compared to the 26 that the Met presented in the 2017-18 season (the season I met opera), the modus operandi appears to be making every single production count. François Girard’s Parsifal—featuring intermissions so long you can go home, have dinner, get stuck in traffic on the way back, and not miss a thing—completes Piotr Beczała’s swan duology and sees the return of the great Elīna Garanča. Nadine Sierra and Matthew Polenzani, two of opera’s most captivating (and congenial) stars, join forces in a revival of Manon (Massenet’s, not Puccini’s), and the world’s preeminent Carmen, Aigul Akhmetshina, stars in Samson et Dalila. There’s a new staging of my namesake opera, La Fanciulla del West, and even the yearly Magic Flute and Bohème are capital-E Events this year, owing to the criminally overdue Met role debuts of the dazzling Kathryn Lewek as Pamina and Musetta. It was excruciating to whittle the coming delicacies down, but here are the five I am most anticipating.
Lincoln in the Bardo
In our 2023 interview, I asked dramatic soprano extraordinaire Christine Goerke whether any modern opera might be in her future. Her delicate response was, “I am excited to say that there is somebody that I admire very much who is currently working on a role for me.” Now the day approaches when her and our excitement will come to fruition: October 19 sees the world premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s Lincoln in the Bardo, starring Christine as the Reverend and the butter-voiced Swede Peter Mattei as Abraham Lincoln—who in reality had a rather reedy voice, but we needn’t worry about historical accuracy in that respect. Christine has not performed at the Met since Lohengrin four seasons ago and, as one of opera’s most vividly dynamic performers (and perhaps its most fun and unpretentious diva), she has been sorely missed.
Lincoln also marks Mazzoli’s keenly awaited Met debut; in 2018, she became one of the first two women commissioned by the Met (Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded opened the 2024-25 season). With her acute sense of the inseparability of story from operatic music and a perspective of music as a way to make sense of and give order to the world, she appears poised to devastate us with George Saunders’ story of Abraham Lincoln grieving the death of his son Willie (played alternately by Everett Sobers and Michael Hurst, the latter of whom did beautiful work in The Hours). If I do not mention the rest of the cast, it is because it is filled with so many illustrious singers that I lack the space to do them justice in this article.
Dates: October 19 (radio), 24, 26, 29, 31, November 3, 7, 11, 14
Cast: Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor), Christine Goerke, Peter Mattei, Janai Brugger, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Stephanie Blythe, Ryan McKinny, Jonah Hoskins, Joshua Blue, Craig Colclough, Everett Sobers/Michael Hurst
Macbeth
Lise Davidsen and Quinn Kelsey in a photoshoot for Macbeth (Paola Kudacki)
As anyone who’s ever been on the receiving end of my arts evangelism will tell you, if there’s anything I love as much as opera, it’s Shakespeare. Verdi earned his lofty place in my pantheon of favorite composers in part by giving to the world a whopping three Shakespeare operas—another of which, Otello, will also have a dozen Met performances this season. Two modern operas balanced out by two Shakespeares; I am content. Let it be noted that it is only because I am not in a theater and not saying it aloud that I dare write the name of the Scottish play opera. Still, the last time an opera with a curse came to the Met, the megatonnage of Lise Davidsen’s instrument averted disaster, and since she will now be uniting her firepower with Quinn Kelsey’s, I’ll skip my usual rituals of exorcism. (I jest; I am not, unfortunately, a witch.)
This is the first time that Quinn, the world’s foremost Verdi baritone and arguably our foremost baritone, period, will open the Met’s season. This is but one of Quinn’s four major roles this season; in my opinion, the administration is spoiling us to make up for giving him nothing more than the fourth-billing role of Sharpless in Madama Butterfly last season. I cannot neglect to mention that the cast have six Girl of the Golden Met Awards between them: one apiece for conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Lise, and tenor Freddie de Tommaso (who plays Macduff), and no fewer than three—consecutive wins!—for Quinn. All things considered, I think it’s safe to say it out loud: “Macbe—”
No way in Dunsinane. Don’t mind me while I go burn some sage.
Dates: September 22, 26, 29, October 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20
Cast: Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor), Quinn Kelsey, Lise Davidsen, Freddie de Tommaso/Rafael Dávila, Ryan Speedo Green
Der Rosenkavalier
Erin Morley and Samantha Hankey in Der Rosenkavalier (Ken Howard/Met Opera)
In Richard Strauss’s Rosenkav, moral grayness reigns supreme, as the (unhappily) married Marschallin and her 17-year-old lover plot to free a damsel from her engagement with a dissolute baron. Though it was written in 1911, a scant few years before the world imploded, it combines serial amorality with fairy-tale chivalry such as one would be hard-pressed to find nowadays. Somehow, I was still surprised to discover that the custom of a knight presenting a silver rose to a betrothed lady (not his!) was invented for the opera. We ought to make that a part of bachelorette parties from now on.
After her quietly elegant Arabella last season in Strauss’s opera of the same name, Rachel Willis-Sørensen takes on the Marschallin, who spends the opera fearing that her age makes her antiquated and unloveable. She’s 32, people. Her acceptance of the passage of time comes in the form of turning her lover over to someone his age in a luscious Final Trio. Captivated by her summery voice, I identified Emily D’Angelo as a destined star halfway through her performance as Mozart’s Annio in 2019—to this day, that La Clemenza di Tito remains the most sublime opera performance I have ever attended—and since the Met has finally begun giving her her due, she will portray Octavian, said lover and the titular Rose Cavalier. Ying Fang, equally superlative as Servilia in that same Clemenza, will be Sophie, who chooses Octavian over her boorish fiancé. I warn you that she regularly appropriates the Celestial City’s culture by impersonating a seraph every time she opens her mouth to sing. I never feel closer to the Kingdom of Heaven than at the opera; we shall see just how near Rosenkav can take us this time.
Dates: March 24, 27, 31, April 4, 7, 10
Cast: Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor), Rachel Willis-Sørensen, Emily D’Angelo, Ying Fang, Eve Gigliotti, Matthew Polenzani, Günther Groissböck, Brenton Ryan, Brian Mulligan
Silent Night
Silent Night (Glimmerglass Festival)
Three years since the announcement of the New Works Initiative, which aimed to bring 15 to 20 contemporary operas to the Met in five seasons, I applaud the Met’s renewed emphasis on quality of modern operas rather than quantity. Mazzoli, composer of the only other modern opera this season, has repeatedly proved her operatic merits with works such as Breaking the Waves, The Listeners, and The Galloping Cure. For Kevin Puts’ part, Silent Night won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2012, not to mention the success of his 2022 adaptation of The Hours, which wrecked me for a full month. A deeply moving anti-war opera, Silent Night brings to the stage the true story of the spontaneous truces of 1914, when soldiers on both sides of World War 1 laid down their arms to celebrate Christmas together. Alas, it is difficult to imagine such a thing happening today, but we can hope.
Tenor Ben Bliss opened the Met’s 2024-25 season in another contemporary anti-war opera, Jeanine Tesori’s aforementioned Grounded, but this will be Elza van den Heever’s first modern opera in 20 years. In 2007, she originated the role of Mary Custis Lee in Philip Glass’s Appomattox, but since then, she’s focused on delivering electrifying turns in works such as Die Walküre, Elettra, and Salome. After his directorial debut with La Sonnambula last season, Mexican ex-tenor Rolando Villazón sings his first non-Papageno role at the Met since he became a baritone (although he will also reprise Papageno earlier this season, huzzah!). Behind the German lines, I have no doubt that bass-baritone Ryan McKinny will prove yet again that he should have won the Met’s National Council Auditions in 2007. Sadly, I’m less sure that we will hear Justin Austin, Kyle Ketelsen, or Ben Reisinger sing with Scottish accents. Still, we can hope.
Dates: March 8, 11, 13, 16, 20, 22, 27, April 1, 3
Cast: Dalia Stasevska (conductor), Elza van den Heever, Ben Bliss, Rolando Villazón, Ben Reisinger, Mattia Olivieri, Justin Austin, Ryan McKinny, Kyle Ketelsen, James Creswell
Tosca
Sondra Radvanovsky in Tosca (Evan Zimmerman/Met Opera)
Upon seeing the sheer number of cast members in Tosca this season, I had to double-check to make sure I wasn’t accidentally reading the announcement for La Bohème. We have all of five Floria Toscas, including two making their Met debuts: Saioa Hernández, dubbed “the soprano of our century” by the legendary Montserrat Caballé herself, and the Welsh-Ukrainian Natalya Romaniw, one of Europe’s most in-demand Toscas for the lyricism and emotion with which she imbues all her performances. However, the Tosca you would be insane to miss is Sondra Radvanovsky, whom I was blessed to see in this role in 2025. When she wept despairingly, I ached to give her a hug; when she was faced with Scarpia’s brutish advances, I felt sick to my stomach; when she flirted with Cavaradossi, I couldn’t shake the notion that I was intruding on a private moment. Moreover, her voice—and her power over it—is simply breathtaking. If no opera house captures her Tosca on video, all of it, it will be a crime against opera’s future generations. Not for nothing did you, readers, vote her Tosca the season’s Best Soprano performance.
The tenor pairings are quite interesting. Unexpectedly, Aleksandra Kurzak will not be singing with her husband, tenor Roberto Alagna, but with Piotr Beczała, who will sing his first Met Cavaradossi. Alagna is paired with Romaniw, and Hernández with SeokJong Baek, who in a 2024 radio broadcast held the “Vittoria!” longer than I’ve heard any other tenor do. Sondra and Piotr have sung together often enough that I would have predicted that the Met would match them, but Sondra will instead sing with the sweet-voiced and sweet-tempered Matthew Polenzani, who will likely counterbalance her fire while yet matching her sensitivity and breaking our hearts. Sondra’s Tosca kept me magnetized to the edge of my seat, the tension too high for tears, while I cried through the last quarter-hour of Matthew’s performance in 2023. Perhaps their pairing will create the best of both worlds.
Dates: November 1, 6, 9, 14, 17, 20, January 6, 9, 12, 15, 17, 22, 24, 29, April 28, 30, May 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 14, 15, 18, 22, 27
Cast: Oksana Lyniv/Daniele Rustioni/Yannick Nézet-Séguin/Karel Mark Chichon/Marco Armiliato (conductor), Saioa Hernández/Aleksandra Kurzak/Eleonora Buratto/Natalya Romaniw/Sondra Radvanovsky, SeokJong Baek/Piotr Beczała/Matthew Polenzani/Roberto Alagna, Quinn Kelsey/George Gagnidze/Željko Lučić/Amartuvshin Enkhbat, Paul Corona/Patrick Carfizzi
Other new productions: Jenůfa, starring Asmik Grigorian; La Fanciulla del West, starring Vida Miknevičiūtė
Other revivals: Aida, starring Angel Blue/Leah Hawkins/Anna Pirozzi and Michael Fabiano/SeokJong Baek; La Bohème, starring Federica Lombardi/Kristina Mkhitaryan/Juliana Grigoryan/Ermonela Jaho/Erika Grimaldi and Atalla Ayan/Adam Smith/Stephen Costello/Pene Pati/Arturo Chacón-Cruz; Così fan tutte, starring Federica Lombardi, Samantha Hankey, and Ana María Martínez; The Magic Flute, starring Emma Marhefka/Emily Pogorelc/Kathryn Lewek and David Portillo/Piotr Buszewski; Manon, starring Nadine Sierra and Matthew Polenzani; Maria Stuarda, starring Lisette Oropesa and Angela Meade; Medea, starring Sonya Yoncheva/Chiara Isotton; Otello, starring Michael Fabiano/Brian Jagde and Angel Blue/Ailyn Pérez; Parsifal, starring Piotr Beczała and Elīna Garanča; Samson et Dalila, starring Aigul Akhmetshina and Clay Hilley
One might have to ascend to heaven to find a voice more lovely than that of Ying Fang, who possesses the sound of a seraph with the shimmer of a polished pearl. She has firmly established herself as one of the world’s leading Mozartians, and she was kind enough to answer some questions about that, the ending of Fidelio, and singing in the street.