The Metropolitan Opera announces its 2026–27 season – five new productions, including two Met premieres, 12 revivals and 193 performances – as well as Peter Gelb’s retirement as General Manager at the end of the 2030 season
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MET PREMIERES
The opening night premiere of Verdi’s Macbeth, featuring Lise Davidsen as Lady Macbeth and Quinn Kelsey as Macbeth, directed by Louisa Proske in her Met debut. Conducted by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
World premiere of Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek’s Lincoln in the Bardo, with Peter Mattei, Christine Goerke and Anthony Roth Costanzo. Conducted by Nézet-Séguin.
Janáček’s Jenůfa, starring Asmik Grigorian, directed by Claus Guth with conductor Tomáš Hanus in his Met debut.
New Year’s Eve premiere of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, with Sondra Radvanovsky, SeokJong Baek and Christopher Maltman. Keri-Lynn Wilson conducts the production by celebrated director Richard Jones.
Met premiere of Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell’s Silent Night, with Elza van den Heever and Ben Bliss. Dalia Stasevska makes her Met conducting debut.
Nézet-Séguin also conducts Puccini’s Tosca, Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Wagner’s Parsifal and Mahler’s Symphony No.8 as Part of Carnegie Hall’s ‘Mahler Symphony Cycle’. Principal Guest Conductor Daniele Rustioni returns to conduct Verdi’s Otello and Puccini’s La bohème and Tosca.
DIAMOND JUBILEE: 60 YEARS AT LINCOLN CENTER – The Met marks its 60th anniversary at its home in Lincoln Center with a special gala celebration On 25 May. The performance, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and directed by Julian Crouch with immersive video and projections by 59 Studios, includes fully staged arias and scenes from more than 30 operas, including Die Walküre, Der Rosenkavalier, La forza del destino, Akhnaten, Pagliacci, Roméo et Juliette and The Queen of Spades.
It will feature some of the most important Met stars. Artists on the program include Aigul Akhmetshina, Roberto Alagna, Xabier Anduaga, SeokJong Baek, Piotr Beczała, J’Nai Bridges, Lawrence Brownlee, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Lise Davidsen, Freddie De Tommaso, Joyce DiDonato, Ying Fang, Rosa Feola, Gerald Finley, Renée Fleming, Igor Golovatenko, Ryan Speedo Green, Asmik Grigorian, Leah Hawkins, Brian Jagde, Isabel Leonard, Will Liverman, Peter Mattei, Latonia Moore, Erin Morley, Ailyn Pérez, Matthew Polenzani, Sondra Radvanovsky, Nadine Sierra, Elza van den Heever, Christian Van Horn, Sonya Yoncheva and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus. Additional artists will be confirmed at a later date.
REPERTORY PRODUCTIONS AND HIGHLIGHTS – The Met will mount 12 revivals during the 2026–27 season, including the perennial favorites Puccini’s La bohème and the family-friendly, English-language version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, as well as Cherubini’s Medea, Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, Massenet’s Manon, Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Puccini’s Tosca, Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila, Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Verdi’s Aida and Otello and Wagner’s Parsifal.
Principal Guest Conductor Daniele Rustioni returns to conduct La bohème, Tosca and Otello.
Mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina returns in Samson et Dalila opposite tenor Clay Hilley in his Met debut as Samson.
Soprano Angel Blue returns as Desdemona in Otello and the title role in Michael Mayer’s acclaimed 2024–25 production of Aida.
Soprano Lisette Oropesa returns in the title role of Maria Stuarda, after her critically praised performances in the Met’s new production of Bellini’s I puritani in the 2025–26 season.
Soprano Nadine Sierra returns, following her triumph in La sonnambula in the 2025–26 season, to sing the title role of Manon opposite tenor Matthew Polenzani.
Sopranos Rachel Willis-Sørensen and Ying Fang, mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo and bass Günther Groissböck return to the Met stage in Der Rosenkavalier.
Tenor Piotr Beczała makes his role debut in the title role of Parsifal opposite mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča in her Met role debut as Kundry. Baritone Peter Mattei is Amfortas, bass Jongmin Park is Gurnemanz and bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green makes his role debut as Klingsor.
Several audience favorites return in La bohème, including sopranos Rosa Feola, Juliana Grigoryan, Ermonela Jaho, Federica Lombardi, Kathryn Lewek and Kristina Mkhitaryan and tenors Atalla Ayan, Stephen Costello, Adam Smith and Pene Pati.
Soprano Sonya Yoncheva sings the title role of Cherubini’s Medea in the first revival of David McVicar’s 2022 production.
Sopranos Saioa Hernández and Natalya Romaniw make their company debuts as Tosca in David McVicar’s production. Baritone Gabriele Viviani makes his Met debut as Scarpia.
THE MET: LIVE IN HD 2026–27 SEASON – The 20th season of the Met’s Live in HD series will feature eight live Met performances transmitted to movie theaters and other venues across the globe, beginning with Mozart’s Così fan tutte (3.10.2026) and continuing with Verdi’s Macbeth (17.10.2026), Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila (5.12.2026), Puccini’s La fanciulla del West (23.1.2027), Kevin Puts’s Silent Night (20.3.2027), Massenet’s Manon (3.4.2027), Verdi’s Otello (24.4.2027) and Wagner’s Parsifal (5.6.2027).
The Met will present a special addition to the 2026–27 Live in HD lineup, ‘Twenty Years of the Met in Cinemas: An Anniversary Celebration’, hosted by soprano Renée Fleming. The show will feature highlights from the company’s collection of more than 185 onscreen performances, including unforgettable moments from opera’s greatest stars: Lise Davidsen, Joyce DiDonato, Elīna Garanča, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Jonas Kaufmann, Peter Mattei, Sondra Radvanovsky and Nadine Sierra, among others.
ERIC AND DOMINIQUE LAFFONT GRAND FINALS CONCERT – The Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition discovers promising young opera singers throughout North America and assists in their artistic and professional development. Roughly 1,500 applicants participate in a series of auditions leading up to the Grand Finals Concert which will be held on 21 March 2027 and features the Met Orchestra conducted by Maestro Evan Rogister. With more than half a million dollars awarded to singers each season, the finalists will compete for cash prizes and the chance to launch a major operatic career.
ASMIK GRIGORIAN IN RECITAL – Soprano Asmik Grigorian appears in recital at the Metropolitan Opera House with pianists Lukas and Petras Geniušas on 18 November 2026 during the run of Jenůfa, in which she stars in the title role. Grigorian joins a select group of extraordinary artists who have given solo recitals on the Met stage in recent years, including Kathleen Battle, Lise Davidsen and Sonya Yoncheva. Grigorian will sing arias by Dvořák, Puccini, Strauss and Verdi, with selections from Rusalka, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut, Turandot, Salome, Don Carlos, Macbeth and Otello.
PETER GELB 20TH-ANNIVERSARY SEASON – Peter Gelb became the company’s 16th General Manager in 2006 and is the third-longest-serving General Manager in Met history after Giulio Gatti-Casazza and Rudolf Bing. Gelb has announced that he plans to retire at the end of the 2030 season.
Gelb’s initiatives reflect his fundamental goals of revitalizing opera and connecting the art form to a wider audience. During his tenure, he has expanded the company’s repertoire with the Met’s Opera Commissioning Program and new productions of classic operas, championed visionary artists, hired directors from Broadway and the West End to enhance the theatricality of Met productions and made important artistic appointments, including naming Yannick Nézet-Séguin Music Director in 2016. By the end of his 20th-anniversary season, Gelb will have overseen 122 new productions, 41 Met premieres and nine Met commissions.
Gelb’s Met career has been dedicated to making opera accessible to new audiences. Under his watch, the average age of single-ticket buyers has dropped from 65 to 44.
Rick Perdian
I have been thrilled with the live HD transmissions since my first one, Eugene Onegin, in Columbia, MD during the first season. I cried later when Anna Netrebko sang in Il puritani because it was so beautiful. I bought the CD of that performance and still love it. Over the years I’ve seen at least 45 or more opera transmissions this way. What a gift! When I was a young nurse working in NYC, maybe in 1964 or 5, I heard, I think, Reri Grist sing an aria from Madama Butterfly at a Richard Franco Goldman band concert in Central Park. It blew me away. The next day I went down 5th Ave to EJ Korvette, and bought the highlights record of Madama Butterfly. After I played it about 50 times my roommate told me if I didn’t get a different record she would break it. I bought La bohème and was hooked for life. I bought us tickets for La bohème at the old Met and it turned out to be the night of Mirella Freni’s debut. So exciting. From then on I stood in line for standing room tickets and saw so many wonderful operas right from behind the orchestra pit and for $1! I sometimes bought seat tickets too, especially after the new Met opened in Lincoln Center. Now I am 83 and live in Oregon and have to drive over an hour to get to a theater that has the transmissions so I did see the new production of Il puritani this year. I just think the gift Gelb gave to the world by starting and continuing these live transmissions is just wonderful. It has been almost like being there and has enabled me to see and hear many more operas than I ever would have. I moved to Maryland from NY in 1968 so I could no longer go to the opera house though I did go to live performances in Baltimore’s Lyric Theater, until they eventually closed.
Peter Gelb deserves the utmost praise and thanks for finding a way to share for all the beauty and excitement of opera.