New/Future Opera
The 2024–25 season will open with the Met premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded, developed in partnership with Lincoln Center Theater and co-produced with Washington National Opera. Other premieres include Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, Gabriela Lena Frank’s Conquest Requiem, Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick, and John Adams’s Antony and Cleopatra.
The 2025–26 season features the world premiere of Mason Bates’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, as well as company premieres of Innocence by Kaija Saariaho and Frank’s El Ùltimo Sueño de Frida y Diego.
Another world premiere, Missy Mazzoli’s Lincoln in the Bardo, will appear during the 2026–27 season, alongside Kevin Puts’s Silent Night and the world premiere of Huang Ruo’s The Wedding Banquet. The 2027–28 season will include the premieres of Matthew Aucoin’s Demons and Carlos Simon’s The Highlands.
Dead Man Walking
Since premiering at San Francisco Opera in 2000, Dead Man Walking has become the most successful and widely performed new opera of the last 20 years.
Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and bass-baritone Ryan McKinny (pictured top left) join soprano Latonia Moore and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham to headline this opera about the search for spiritual redemption on death row.
Photo: paola kudacki/met opera
El Niño
John Adams’s opera-oratorio is a fresh and unique retelling of the familiar Nativity story. The libretto—in English, Spanish, and Latin—blends ancient and contemporary religious and secular writings and poetry.
El Niño storyboards (pictured lower left and right). This Met premiere marks the debuts of conductor Marin Alsop, soprano Julia Bullock, bass-baritone Davóne Tines, and director Lileana Blain-Cruz.
Set Designs: Adam Rigg
X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X
2020 Pulitzer Prize–winner Anthony Davis’s opera brings a blend of cultural styles as he focuses on the spiritual and political transformation of human-rights activist and thought leader Malcolm X.
Baritone Will Liverman (pictured top) stars in the expansive retelling of Malcolm X’s story.
Photo: zenith richards/met opera
Florencia en el Amazonas
Florencia en el Amazonas was the first Spanish-language opera ever commissioned by a major U.S. opera company, with a libretto inspired by the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez.
Soprano Ailyn Pérez (pictured bottom) sings the title role in Catán’s mythical tale of loss and love.
Photo: paola kudacki/met opera
Innocence
Top Left: Hailed “a masterpiece” by The New York Times, late Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence captures the real-life family and community devastation—and resilience—following an unthinkable tragedy.
Photo: © Jean-Louis Fernandez / Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 2021
Ainadamar
Bottom Left: Argentine composer Osvldo Golijov’s opera Ainadamar explores the life and tragic death of poet and playwright Federico García Lorca. The opera is sung in Spanish, and flamenco is a dominant feature in the music and the staging.
Photo: James Glossop
Moby-Dick
Above: Jake Heggie returns to the Met for the premiere of his opera based on Herman Melville’s novel. In Moby-Dick, librettist Gene Scheer and Heggie have created what The Washington Post calls a “contemporary grand opera that delivers on a grand-opera scale.”
Photo: cory weaver / san francisco opera
Antony and Cleopatra
Top Right: Composer John Adams adapted William Shakespeare’s tragic masterpiece to create his latest opera, Antony and Cleopatra.
Photo: ©Cory Weaver / San Francisco Opera
El último sueño de Frida y Diego
Top Right: Grammy Award–winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Nilo Cruz collaborated to create El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, a Spanish-language opera comprising 21 brief vignettes.
Photo: ©Cory Weaver / San Francisco Opera
Grounded
Top Left: The Met premiere of Tony Award–winning composer Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded—adapted from George Brant’s
play about the psychological toll of drone warfare—opens the 2024–25 season.
Set Design: Mimi Lien
Conquest Requiem
Top Right: Gabriela Lena Frank’s Conquest Requiem explores the origins and development of Mestizo culture in Central America. In Latin and Spanish, Nilo Cruz’s libretto is a blend of Latin liturgical verses, Nahuatl poetry, and contemporary text.
Set Design: Jon Bausor
Silent Night
Bottom Left: Kevin Puts’s Pulitzer Prize–winning opera is based on the 2005 film Joyeux Noël, recounting the spontaneous Christmas truce of World War I, and is sung in five languages.
Photo: Dominic Mercier / Opera Philadelphia
The Wedding Banquet
Bottom Right: Drawing from Chinese musical elements, composer Huang Ruo’s works blend Eastern and Western musical influences. His new opera, The Wedding Banquet, is a comedy inspired by Ang Lee’s 1993 film of the same name.
Photo: Entertainment Pictures / Alamy Stock Photo
The Highlands
Left: Grammy-nominated composer Carlos Simon has established the quest for social justice as an anchor in his creative process. His compositions, including his new opera, The Highlands, draw from a palette of musical influences ranging from neo-Romanticism to gospel and jazz.
Photo: Terrance Ragland
Demons
Right: Composer Matthew Aucoin returns to the Met for the world premiere of his opera Demons, based on the Dostoevsky novel about the rise and consequences of nihilism within a distracted and unsuspecting society.
Photo: steven laxton
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Left: Adapted from Michael Chabon’s novel, Mason Bates’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay revolves around a pair of cousins who start their own comic-book company in New York in the first half of the 20th century, and explores themes of escapism and resourcefulness.
Photo: Todd Rosenberg
Lincoln in the Bardo
Right: Grammy-nominated composer Missy Mazzoli was among the first women to be commissioned by the Met. Her opera Lincoln in the Bardo—based on the book by George Saunders—centers on the death of the 16th president’s son and deals with issues of loss, mysticism, and grief.
Photo: Marylene Mey
New Opera at the Met: Then and Now
New/Future Opera