WYO Theater

Two-time Tony Award–winning composer Jeanine Tesori’s powerful new opera Grounded, commissioned by the Met and based on librettist George Brant’s acclaimed play, wrestles with the ethical quandaries and psychological toll of 21st-century warfare. Mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, one of opera’s most compelling young stars, portrays Jess, a hot-shot fighter pilot whose unplanned pregnancy takes her out of the cockpit and lands her in Las Vegas, operating a Reaper drone halfway around the world. As she struggles to adjust to this new way of doing battle, she fights to maintain her sanity, and her soul, as she is called to rain down death by remote control. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin oversees the Met premiere of Tesori’s kaleidoscopic score and a cast that also features tenor Ben Bliss as the Wyoming rancher who becomes Jess’s husband. Michael Mayer’s high-tech staging, using a vast array of LED screens, presents a variety of perspectives on the action, including the drone’s predatory view from high above.

Three thrilling leading ladies trade off as the volatile diva Floria Tosca. First, soprano Aleksandra Kurzak reprises her riveting portrayal of the title role, starring alongside tenor SeokJong Baek as her revolutionary lover, Cavaradossi, and baritone George Gagnidze as the sadistic chief of police Scarpia. Later in the season, the extraordinary Lise Davidsen sings Tosca for her first time at the Met, alongside tenor Freddie De Tommaso in his eagerly anticipated company debut and powerhouse baritone Quinn Kelsey. And in the winter, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and tenor Brian Jagde reunite following their acclaimed 2021 performances of the lead pair, joining forces with legendary bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, who returns to the Met after more than a decade. Maestro Xian Zhang conducts.

Soprano Angel Blue makes her long-awaited Met role debut as the Ethiopian princess torn between love and country, one of opera’s defining roles. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium for the New Year’s Eve premiere of Michael Mayer’s spectacular new staging, which brings audiences inside the towering pyramids and gilded tombs of ancient Egypt with intricate projections and dazzling animations. Mezzo-soprano Judit Kutasi, following her 2024 debut in Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, is Aida’s Egyptian rival Amneris, sharing the role with Elīna Garanča, who returns to the Met for the first time since 2020. Leading tenors Piotr Beczała and Brian Jagde alternate as the soldier Radamès, who completes the greatest love triangle in the repertory. The all-star cast also features baritones Quinn Kelsey and Amartuvshin Enkhbat and bass-baritone Eric Owens as Amonasro and basses Dmitry Belosselskiy, Alexander Vinogradov, and Morris Robinson as Ramfis. Christina Nilsson makes her Met debut in the title role in March, and Alexander Soddy shares conducting duties.

Following a string of awe-inspiring Met performances, soprano Lise Davidsen stars as Leonore, who risks everything to save her husband from the clutches of tyranny. Tenor David Butt Philip is the political prisoner Florestan, sharing the stage with bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny as the villainous Don Pizarro, veteran bass René Pape as the jailer Rocco, and soprano Ying Fang and tenor Magnus Dietrich, in his company debut, as the young Marzelline and Jaquino. Bass Stephen Milling sings the principled Don Fernando, and Susanna Mälkki conducts the Met’s striking production, which finds modern-day parallels in Beethoven’s stirring paean to freedom.

Conductor Joana Mallwitz makes her Met debut leading two extraordinary casts in Mozart’s comic masterpiece. Bass-baritones Michael Sumuel and Luca Pisaroni star as the clever valet Figaro, opposite sopranos Olga Kulchynska and Rosa Feola as his betrothed, the wily maid Susanna. Baritone Joshua Hopkins and bass-baritone Adam Plachetka alternate as the skirt-chasing Count, sopranos Federica Lombardi and Jacquelyn Stucker (in her Met debut) trade off as his anguished wife, and mezzo-sopranos Marianne Crebassa and Emily D’Angelo share the role of the adolescent page Cherubino.

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts his first Met performances of Strauss’s white-hot one-act tragedy, which receives its first new production at the company in 20 years. Claus Guth, one of Europe’s leading opera directors, gives the biblical story—already filtered through the beautiful and strange imagination of Oscar Wilde’s play—a psychologically perceptive Victorian-era setting rich in symbolism and subtle shades of darkness and light. Headlining the new staging is soprano Elza van den Heever as the abused and unhinged antiheroine, who demands the head of Jochanaan, sung by celebrated baritone Peter Mattei. Tenor Gerhard Siegel is Salome’s lecherous stepfather, King Herod, with mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung as his wife, Herodias, and tenor Piotr Buszewski as Narraboth. Derrick Inouye conducts two performances in May.

Rossini’s effervescent comedy retakes the stage in Bartlett Sher’s madcap production. Two star mezzo-sopranos—Isabel Leonard and Aigul Akhmetshina—headline a winning ensemble as the feisty heroine, Rosina, alongside high-flying tenors Lawrence Brownlee and Jack Swanson, in his Met debut, as her secret beloved, Count Almaviva. Baritones Davide Luciano and Andrey Zhilikhovsky star as Figaro, the infamous barber of Seville, with baritone Nicola Alaimo and bass-baritone Peter Kálmán as Dr. Bartolo and bass Alexander Vinogradov as Don Basilio rounding out the principal cast. Giacomo Sagripanti conducts.