Opening Night features a new Aida, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and starring Anna Netrebko, Anita Rachvelishvili, and Piotr Beczała, in a new staging by Michael Mayer.
Maestro Nézet-Séguin, in his third season as Music Director, will conduct six operas, including new stagings of Aida, Don Giovanni, and Dead Man Walking, as well as three classic revivals and two Met Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall.
The six operas conducted by Maestro Nézet-Séguin will all be featured in The Met: Live in HD series—the most transmissions ever led by a single conductor in an HD season.
Renowned directors Barrie Kosky (The Fiery Angel), Ivo van Hove (Don Giovanni and Dead Man Walking), and Simon McBurney (Die Zauberflöte) make notable Met debuts with new productions.
For the first time in recent decades, the Met season will extend into June and will include no performances in February.
There will be more weekend opera than ever before, with 22 Sunday matinee performances, plus onstage post-performance discussions with the stars of each Sunday matinee.
Notable debuts include conductors Hartmut Haenchen, Jakub Hrůša, Giacomo Sagripanti, Speranza Scappucci, and Lorenzo Viotti and singers Varduhi Abrahamyan, Benjamin Bernheim, Amartuvshin Enkhbat, Lucia Lucas, Thomas Oliemans, Svetlana Sozdateleva, and Okka von der Damerau.
Other notable conducting engagements include Harry Bicket (Giulio Cesare), Gustavo Dudamel (Die Zauberflöte), and Simone Young (Billy Budd), among others.
The 2020–21 season will be General Manager Peter Gelb’s 15th as the Met’s General Manager.
The Metropolitan Opera announced its 2020–21 season, the first in which Yannick Nézet-Séguin assumes his full breadth of musical duties as the company’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, conducting six productions. His schedule includes the Met premiere of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, the first contemporary opera conducted by the maestro on the Met stage, as part of his ongoing commitment to opera of our time at the Met, which will expand in the seasons to come.
The season—which includes five new productions and 18 revivals—kicks off on September 21 with the first new staging of Verdi’s Aida in more than 30 years, directed by Michael Mayer, conducted by Nézet-Séguin, and starring Anna Netrebko, Anita Rachvelishvili, and Piotr Beczała. Australian director Barrie Kosky makes his company debut with the Met-premiere production of Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel, with Michail Jurowski leading an extraordinary cast in his Met debut. Two Mozart operas will also be seen in new stagings: an acclaimed production of Die Zauberflöte directed by Simon McBurney and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, and a sophisticated new take on Don Giovanni, Ivo van Hove’s highly anticipated Met-debut production, conducted by Nézet-Séguin and starring Peter Mattei, Gerald Finley, Ailyn Pérez, and Isabel Leonard in the leading roles. And in April, Nézet-Séguin conducts the Met premiere of Jake Heggie’s 21st-century masterpiece Dead Man Walking, with a new staging by van Hove featuring Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Latonia Moore, and Etienne Dupuis.
Following the successful addition of 16 new Sunday matinee performances last season, the Met will offer even more weekend options in 2020–21, with 22 Sunday matinee performances. Each Sunday matinee will be followed by an onstage post-performance discussion with the stars.
For the first time, the Met season will include no performances in February, with the company instead extending its performance calendar into the month of June.
In his third season as Music Director, in addition to the three new stagings, Nézet-Séguin conducts revivals of Fidelio, Roméo et Juliette, and Die Frau ohne Schatten, as well as two of three Met Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall in June. (Semyon Bychkov will conduct the first concert in the Carnegie Hall series, on June 10.)
“This is the season in which the Yannick era hits its stride,” said General Manager Peter Gelb. “In conducting six operas, he will be present throughout the entire season, raising the artistic bar for the orchestra, the chorus, and the entire company.”
“The artistic excellence we achieve each season is due to the invaluable contributions in the pit and on stage by the great Met Orchestra and Chorus,” Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin said. “This is an exciting time for opera, and I’m thrilled to be sharing my passion for it with the Met’s discerning and loyal audience, while deepening my relationship with this great institution. As we look forward to future seasons, we will not only continue to expand our repertoire with new commissions by living composers but will also be adding to our artistic ranks with more women on the podium and a greater emphasis on artistic diversity.”
Dozens of the world’s leading opera stars bring their artistry to 18 repertory revivals throughout the season, including Marcelo Álvarez, Jamie Barton, Piotr Beczała, Angel Blue, Stephanie Blythe, J’Nai Bridges, Lawrence Brownlee, Javier Camarena, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Stephen Costello, Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato, Gerald Finley, Angela Gheorghiu, Christine Goerke, Susan Graham, Greer Grimsley, Günther Groissböck, Ekaterina Gubanova, Anita Hartig, Evelyn Herlitzius, Quinn Kelsey, Tomasz Konieczny, Isabel Leonard, Peter Mattei, Angela Meade, Latonia Moore, Erin Morley, Anna Netrebko, Lisette Oropesa, Eric Owens, Ailyn Pérez, Susanna Phillips, Matthew Polenzani, Anita Rachvelishvili, Brenda Rae, Golda Schultz, Nadine Sierra, Stuart Skelton, Nina Stemme, Krassimira Stoyanova, Elza van den Heever, Christian Van Horn, Klaus Florian Vogt, Michael Volle, Pretty Yende, and Sonya Yoncheva. They perform alongside a number of significant newcomers to the Met stage, including Benjamin Bernheim, Okka von der Damerau, and Varduhi Abrahamyan. This is also a remarkable season for new conductors, with Hartmut Haenchen, Jakub Hrůša, Michail Jurowski, Nimrod David Pfeffer, Giacomo Sagripanti, Speranza Scappucci, Lorenzo Viotti, and Kensho Watanabe all appearing for the first time on the podium.
New Productions
OPENING NIGHT: Aida — Giuseppe Verdi
- Opening: September 21, 2020
- Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
- Production: Michael Mayer
- Set Designer: Christine Jones
- Costume Designer: Susan Hilferty
- Lighting Designer: Kevin Adams
- Projection Designer: 59 Productions
- Choreographer: Oleg Glushkov
- Live in HD: October 10, 2020
Verdi’s opera receives its first new staging at the Met in more than three decades, with a season-opening premiere production directed by Michael Mayer, whose dazzling vision of ancient Egypt comes alive with intricate projections and eye-catching animations. Anna Netrebko and Anita Rachvelishvili portray archrivals Aida and Amneris on Opening Night—reprising their acclaimed partnership in the same roles from the 2018–19 season—and Piotr Beczała completes the triumvirate as Radamès. Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a benchmark cast that also includes Ludovic Tézier as Aida’s father, Amonasro, and Krzysztof Bączyk in his Met debut as the King of Egypt. A co-production with the Bolshoi Theatre, this Aida also features Latonia Moore and Hibla Gerzmava in later performances of the title role, as well as Ekaterina Semenchuk and Marcelo Álvarez as Amneris and Radamès.
MET PREMIERE: The Fiery Angel — Sergei Prokofiev
- Opening: November 12, 2020
- Conductor: Michail Jurowski
- Production: Barrie Kosky
- Set Designer: Rebecca Ringst
- Costume Designer: Klaus Bruns
- Lighting Designer: Joachim Klein
- Choreographer: Otto Pichler
Australian director Barrie Kosky, a bright and bold force in the opera world, makes his long-awaited company debut with the Met premiere production of Prokofiev’s devilish masterwork, conducted by Michail Jurowski, also in his Met debut. Portraying the vagabond knight Ruprecht, Evgeny Nikitin stars opposite Svetlana Sozdateleva, who makes her Met debut in the role of Renata, the pious young woman obsessed with a mysterious angelic lover. Kosky’s visually stunning production was hailed by the Financial Times as “a gripping evening” when it premiered in Munich in 2015.
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