The Metropolitan Opera
What began as an experiment 17 years ago has become a staple experience for music lovers all around the world. Our 2023–24 season in movie theaters reflects how opera is changing at the Met, where we’re balancing timeless classics with accessible new work that is advancing the art form and attracting younger and more diverse audiences.
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When the Metropolitan Opera was founded in 1883—and for the first decades of its existence—new and recent work by the likes of Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini were the norm. And as the largest performing-arts company in the United States and the country’s premier opera house, we will continue to present the music of these great composers long after their operas have come to define the standard repertory. But for the art form to continue, we also need to present new works—which is why we have made it a priority in our programming.
The upcoming cinema season will present three Met premieres, starting with Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, based on the memoir by Sister Helen Prejean and featuring extraordinary mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. In November, we will present Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, with baritone Will Liverman as the legendary civil-rights leader. Then, soprano Ailyn Pérez headlines the late Mexican composer Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, just the third Spanishlanguage opera in Met history.
Two new productions of popular favorites are sure to be highlights of the season as well. Director Carrie Cracknell makes her Met debut with a new production of Bizet’s Carmen, with rising mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina in the title role. And superstar soprano Lise Davidsen features in a new production of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, the first Met performances of this stirring drama since 2006.
Of course, we will also present top-notch revivals featuring the world’s greatest singers, including leading soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska as Abigaille in Verdi’s Nabucco, Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette with radiant soprano Nadine Sierra and acclaimed tenor Benjamin Bernheim as the star-crossed lovers, incandescent soprano Angel Blue headlining Puccini’s La Rondine, and the highly anticipated Met debut of soprano Asmik Grigorian in the title role of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.
We are sure that this mix of the new and the tried-and-true will make for a thrilling season for our Live in HD audiences. — Peter Gelb
