New/Future Opera

Building on the success of the 2023–24 season, the current season includes the Met premieres of four works by diverse composers that have had notable triumphs in other cities. Jeanine Tesori’s new opera Grounded—commissioned by the Met, with libretto by George Brant, based on his play—opens the season, while later in the fall, a vivid new production of Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, with libretto by David Henry Hwang, takes the stage. And in the spring, Jake Heggie’s Moby-Dick, adapted from Melville by librettist Gene Scheer, arrives, followed by John Adams’s latest opera, Antony and Cleopatra.

The 2025–26 season opens with the premiere of Mason Bates’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, with libretto by Gene Scheer, commissioned by the Met and co-produced with Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Other premieres include Innocence by the late Kaija Saariaho, with libretto by Sofi Oksanen and Aleksi Barrière, and Gabriela Lena Frank’s El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, with libretto by Nilo Cruz.

Another world premiere, Missy Mazzoli’s Lincoln in the Bardo, with libretto by Royce Vavrek, will appear during the 2026–27 season, alongside Kevin Puts’s Silent Night, with libretto by Mark Campbell, and the world premiere of Carlos Simon’s The Highlands, with libretto by Lynn Nottage and Ruby Aiyo Gerber. The 2027–28 season will include the premiere of Huang Ruo’s The Wedding Banquet, with libretto by James Schamus, and The Mothers of Kherson by Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets with libretto by George Brant, developed in partnership with Lincoln Center Theater.

All of the company premieres featured in the five seasons from 2023–24 to 2027–28 are part of the Neubauer Family Foundation New Works Initiative.

DEAD MAN WALKING
Since premiering at San Francisco Opera in 2000, Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, with libretto by Terrence McNally, has become the most successful and widely performed new opera of the last 20 years.

Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and bass-baritone Ryan McKinny joined soprano Latonia Moore and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham to headline this opera about the search for spiritual redemption on death row.
PHOTO: KAREN ALMOND / MET OPERA

X: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MALCOLM X
2020 Pulitzer Prize–winner Anthony Davis’s opera, with libretto by Thulani Davis and story by Christopher Davis, embraces a blend of cultural and musical styles in chronicling the spiritual and political transformation of Malcolm X.

Baritone Will Liverman starred in the expansive retelling of Malcolm X’s story.
PHOTO: MARTY SOHL / 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 by Marcela Fuentes-Berain inspired by the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez.

Soprano Ailyn Pérez sang the title role in Catán’s mythical tale of loss and love.
PHOTO: KEN HOWARD / 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.

This Met premiere marked the debuts of conductor Marin Alsop, soprano Julia Bullock, bass-baritone Davóne Tines, and director Lileana Blain-Cruz.
PHOTO: EVAN ZIMMERMAN / MET OPERA

GROUNDED
The Met premiere of Tony Award–winning composer Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded—adapted by George Brant from his play about the psychological toll of drone warfare—opens the 2024–25 season, featuring mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo as the fighter pilot Jess.
PHOTO: PAOLA KUDACKI / MET OPERA

AINADAMAR
Argentinian composer Osvldo Golijov’s opera Ainadamar, with libretto by David Henry Hwang, explores the life and tragic death of poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, starring soprano Angel Blue and mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack. The opera is sung in Spanish, and flamenco is a dominant feature in the music and the staging.
PHOTO: PAOLA KUDACKI / MET OPERA

MOBY-DICK
Jake Heggie returns to the Met for the premiere of his opera, with libretto by Gene Scheer based on Herman Melville’s novel, starring tenor Brandon Jovanovich as the monomaniacal Captain Ahab—a creation The Washington Post calls a “contemporary grand opera that delivers on a grand-opera scale.”
PHOTO: ZENITH RICHARDS / MET OPERA

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
Composer John Adams adapted William Shakespeare’s tragic masterpiece to create his latest opera, Antony and Cleopatra. Soprano Julia Bullock stars as the irresistible Cleopatra, opposite bass-baritone Gerald Finley as the conflicted Antony.
PHOTO: BARCELONA LICEU / DAVID RUANO

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY
Adapted by librettist Gene Scheer from Michael Chabon’s novel, Mason Bates’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay focuses on two cousins, one who has escaped the Holocaust, who create a Nazi-fighting comic-book superhero.
SET DESIGN: 59 PRODUCTIONS

INNOCENCE
Hailed “a masterpiece” by The New York Times, late Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s Innocence, with libretto by Sofi Oksanen and Aleksi Barrière, captures the real-life family and community devastation—and resilience—following an unthinkable tragedy.
PHOTO: © JEAN-LOUIS FERNANDEZ / FESTIVAL D’AIX-EN-PROVENCE 2021

EL ÚLTIMO SUEÑO DE FRIDA Y DIEGO
Composer Gabriela Lena Frank’s Spanish-language opera comprises 21 brief vignettes about the lives of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, libretto by Nilo Cruz.
PHOTO: MARIAH TAUGER

THE MOTHERS OF KHERSON
A new opera by Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets, with libretto by George Brant, recounts the true events of Ukrainian mothers who embarked on an arduous 3,000-mile journey behind enemy lines into Russia to rescue their children forcibly detained there by Russian authorities.
PHOTO: SASHA PAIS

LINCOLN IN THE BARDO
Composer Missy Mazzoli was one of the first two women to be commissioned by the Met. Her opera Lincoln in the Bardo—based on the book by George Saunders, adapted by librettist Royce Vavrek—centers on the death of the 16th president’s son and deals with issues of loss, mysticism, and grief.
PHOTO: MARYLENE MEY

SILENT NIGHT
Kevin Puts’s Pulitzer Prize–winning opera is based on the 2005 film Joyeux Noël, recounting the spontaneous Christmas truce of World War I, with a libretto in five languages by Mark Campbell.
PHOTO: DOMINIC MERCIER / OPERA PHILADELPHIA

THE HIGHLANDS
Composer Carlos Simon has established the quest for social justice as an anchor in his creative process. His works, including his new opera, The Highlands—with libretto by Lynn Nottage and Ruby Aiyo Gerber—draw from a palette of musical influences ranging from neo-Romanticism to gospel and jazz.
PHOTO: TERRANCE RAGLAND

DEMONS
Following the 2021 Met premiere of Eurydice, Matthew Aucoin returns to the Met for the world premiere of his opera Demons, with libretto by Will Arbery, based on the Dostoevsky novel about the leaders of a nihilistic sect and their effect on a distracted and unsuspecting society.
PHOTO: STEVEN LAXTON

THE WEDDING BANQUET
Drawing from Chinese musical elements, composer Huang Ruo’s works blend Eastern and Western musical influences. His new opera, The Wedding Banquet, with libretto by James Schamus, is a comedy inspired by Ang Lee’s 1993 film of the same name.
PHOTO: ENTERTAINMENT PICTURES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

New Opera at the Met: Then and Now

New/Future Opera