The Metropolitan Opera’s 2022 Summer Recital Series features six free concerts, bringing opera to all five boroughs
- Met singers Brittany Renee, Ben Bliss, and Justin Austin to perform at Central Park SummerStage and Brooklyn Bridge Park on June 20 and 22
- Additional recitals to feature Met young artists, including Ukrainian bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi
- The series is presented in collaboration with Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage
New York, NY (April 26, 2022; Revised May 16, 2022)—The Metropolitan Opera’s 2022 Summer Recital Series once again brings free outdoor recitals, featuring established artists and young talents of the opera world, to New Yorkers in all five boroughs. The series, now in its 13th year, features six concerts and has become an operatic summer tradition. Presented in collaboration with Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage, the first two concerts will be at Central Park SummerStage (Manhattan) on Monday, June 20, at 8PM and at Brooklyn Bridge Park (Brooklyn) on Wednesday, June 22, at 7PM. The concerts will feature Met singers soprano Brittany Renee, who sang Evelyn in Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones and Annie in the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess this season, tenor Ben Bliss, who will sing the role of Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress in May, and baritone Justin Austin, who recently starred in Ricky Ian Gordon’s chamber opera Intimate Apparel at Lincoln Center Theater. They will be joined by Met assistant conductor Bryan Wagorn at the piano.
Four additional recitals feature current members from the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, including soprano Amani Cole-Felder, who made her Met debut as Strawberry Woman in the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, mezzo-soprano Cierra Byrd, who made her Met debut as Bertha in Fire Shut Up in My Bones, and bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi, who recently appeared in the Met’s A Concert for Ukraine benefit concert, Verdi’s Don Carlos, and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Met assistant conductor Dimitri Dover will join the singers at the piano. Their recitals will take place on Thursday, June 23, at 7PM in Jackie Robinson Park (Manhattan); Saturday, June 25, at 4PM at the Williamsbridge Oval (Bronx); Monday, June 27, at 7PM in Socrates Sculpture Park (Queens); and Wednesday, June 29, at 7PM in Clove Lakes Park (Staten Island).
The Met’s Summer Recital Series will feature arias and duets, as well as Broadway standards and other classical favorites.
The Met’s Summer Recital Series is funded by the Elizabeth B. McGraw Foundation, in honor of Mrs. McGraw. Additional support has also been provided, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and in collaboration with the Department of Parks and Recreation.
No tickets are required for any of the performances. There are no rain dates for any of the park recitals. For more information, please visit metopera.org.