The Metropolitan Opera will double forged a portion of Verdi and Puccini revivals and shift some up to date compositions away from Saturdays on the suggestion of a marketing consultant attempting to spice up the corporate’s funds.
The 2025-26 season introduced Wednesday would be the third straight with 18 productions, down from 28 in 2007-08. There might be six new-to-the Met stagings for the third consecutive season, together with three firm premieres.
Revivals comprise 79% of the 196 staged performances, up from 71% within the present season. Verdi’s “La Traviata” will seem 21 instances and there might be 52 showings of Puccini staples: 20 of “La Bohème,” 17 of “Turandot” and 15 of “Madama Butterfly.”
“Butterfly” will be presented starring Sonya Yoncheva on March 18 and with Elena Stikhina the following day, and “Traviata” with Rosa Feola on Might 8 and Ermonela Jaho the subsequent day,
“Amongst the recommendations that we’ve had from Boston Consulting Group was for those operas that we play fairly regularly to play more of them and have runs that include more than one cast so that we don’t have to constantly be moving scenery in and out the theater,” Met common supervisor Peter Gelb stated.
Gelb stated the consultants additionally really helpful fewer cut up runs, during which an opera seems in numerous components of the season. The Met has instituted weekly cost-monitoring conferences amongst division heads however has not taken from its endowment this season after withdrawing $40 million in 2023-24.
Met attendance was 70% of obtainable tickets within the season’s first half, down from 73% on the similar level final 12 months, however the firm tasks ending the season at 75%, up from 72%.
Jeanine Tesori’s “Grounded” opened the season and offered 50%, the bottom of 10 productions, and Osvaldo Golijov’s “Ainadamar” offered 61%. An English-language revival of Julie Taylor’s staging of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” at vacation time led with 82%, adopted by Michael Mayer’s new manufacturing of Verdi’s “Aida” at 79%.
Mason Bates’ “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” opens subsequent season on Sept. 21 and can get seven performances — the utmost for the brand new stagings. Gelb stated there have been revisions to extend prominence of some characters since its world premiere with a scholar forged at Indiana College in November.
“Kavalier” was not included among the many Met’s eight excessive definition video simulcasts to theaters around the globe. Gelb stated the Met’s broadcast viewers was 55% of its pre-pandemic stage and newer works get publicity within the New York space however not in Europe, which pulls half the HD viewers.
“By emphasizing more of the staple repertoire and fewer new works it gives us the opportunity for the live in HD to remain profitable,” he stated.
Different new-to-the-Met stagings are Rolando Villazón’s manufacturing of Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” (opening Oct. 6), first seen at Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in June 2021 and postponed by the Met from 2023-24 due to finances cuts; Carlos Edwards manufacturing of Bellini’s “I Puritani” (New Yr’s Eve); Yuval Sharon’s staging of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” starring Lise Davidsen (March 9); Kaija Saariaho’s final opera, “Innocence” (April 6), in a Simon Stone manufacturing from its premiere at Aix-en-Provence, France, in July 2021; and “El ultimó sueño de Frida y Diego” by Grammy Award winner Gabriela Lena Frank and Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz (Might 14) in a Deborah Colker staging.
Amongst Met commissions, Carlos Simon’s opera for 2026-27 has been renamed “In the Rush” from “The Highlands” and Huang Ruo’s The Marriage ceremony Banquet” will open the 2027-28 season.
Ivo Van Hove’s manufacturing of Weill’s “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” and Claus Guth’s staging of Handel’s “Semele” have been scheduled for 2027-28.
Handel stagings of “Alcina” by Richard Jones and “Ariodante” by Robert Carsen stay on monitor for future seasons together with Simon McBurney’s manufacturing of Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina.”
Plans have been dropped for Kevin Newbury’s staging of Donizetti’s “La Favorite.” Barrie Kosky’s manufacturing of Prokofiev’s “The Fiery Angel” from the canceled 2020-21 season stays on maintain.
