Met Opera Season 2021-2022

In tandem with the painful decision to cancel the entirety of the Met’s 2020–21 season, we are proud to announce ambitious artistic plans for the company’s return in the 2021–22 season. The newly announced season will open September 27, 2021, with the Met premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones (pictured above)—the first opera by an African American composer to be performed at the Met—with a libretto by Kasi Lemmons, based on the memoir by Charles M. Blow. The opera will be conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and will star Angel Blue, Latonia Moore, and Will Liverman.

On Stage 2021–22

PHILIP GLASS

MAY 19 – JUN 10

Akhnaten

OCT 10

Anna Netrebko with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Met Orchestra

RICHARD STRAUSS

MAR 1 – MAR 17

Ariadne auf Naxos

GIACOMO PUCCINI

NOV 9 – MAY 27

La Bohème

MODEST MUSSORGSKY

SEP 28 – OCT 17

Boris Godunov

JULES MASSENET

DEC 17 – JAN 3

Cinderella—Holiday Presentation

NEW PRODUCTION GIUSEPPE VERDI

FEB 28 – MAR 26

Don Carlos

RICHARD STRAUSS

APR 1 – APR 20

Elektra

PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

MAR 25 – APR 14

Eugene Onegin

NEW PRODUCTION MATTHEW AUCOIN / LIBRETTO BY SARAH RUHL

NOV 23 – DEC 16

Eurydice

NEW PRODUCTION TERENCE BLANCHARD / LIBRETTO BY KASI LEMMONS

SEP 27 – OCT 23

Fire Shut Up in My Bones

NEW PRODUCTION BRETT DEAN / LIBRETTO BY MATTHEW JOCELYN

MAY 13 – JUN 9

Hamlet

CHRISTOPH WILLIBALD GLUCK

SEP 29 – OCT 15

Iphigénie en Tauride

NEW PRODUCTION GAETANO DONIZETTI

APR 23 – MAY 21

Lucia di Lammermoor

GIACOMO PUCCINI

MAR 19 – MAY 7

Madama Butterfly

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

DEC 10 – JAN 5

The Magic Flute—Holiday Presentation

RICHARD WAGNER

OCT 26 – NOV 14

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

MAY 1

National Council Auditions Grand Finals Concert

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

JAN 8 – APR 21

Le Nozze di Figaro

THE GERSHWINS’

OCT 31 – DEC 12

Porgy and Bess

IGOR STRAVINSKYMAY 30 – JUN 11

The Rake’s Progress

GIUSEPPE VERDISEP 11

Requiem

NEW PRODUCTION GIUSEPPE VERDIDEC 31 – JUN 11

Rigoletto

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL

MAR 11 – MAR 31

Rodelinda

JAN 23

Sonya Yoncheva in Recital

GIACOMO PUCCINI

DEC 2 – MAR 12

Tosca

GIACOMO PUCCINI

OCT 7 – MAY 14

Turandot

Blanchard’s opera is one of three contemporary works to have premieres in 2021–22, the greatest number of new operas to premiere in a single Met season since 1928–29. The other new works are Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, set to a libretto by Sarah Ruhl, also conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and starring Erin Morley in the title role, and Brett Dean’s Hamlet, with a libretto by Matthew Jocelyn and with Allan Clayton as the tortured Dane. The season also features new productions of Verdi’s Rigoletto, starring Rosa Feola, Piotr Beczała, and Quinn Kelsey, and Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, with Nadine Sierra in the title role, opposite Javier Camarena. The Met premiere of the original five-act, French-language version of Verdi’s Don Carlos will also have Nézet-Séguin on the podium leading an all-star cast: Sonya Yoncheva, Elīna Garanča, Matthew Polenzani, Etienne Dupuis, Günther Groissböck, and John Relyea.

Fire Shut Up in My Bones will be co-directed by James Robinson and Camille A. Brown, building on their collaboration with The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess in the 2019–20 season. Brown becomes the first Black director in Met history to create a mainstage production; she is also the production’s choreographer. Three other new productions come from returning directors, as well: Mary Zimmerman will direct the Met premiere of Eurydice, Bartlett Sher will direct the new Rigoletto, and Sir David McVicar is back for Don Carlos. Lucia di Lammermoor will see the highly anticipated Met debut of director Simon Stone, and Neil Armfield also debuts, bringing to the Met his acclaimed Glyndebourne Festival production of Dean’s Hamlet.

In addition to these new productions, the Met will offer an abridged, English-language holiday presentation of Cinderella, an adaptation of Laurent Pelly’s witty 2018 production of Massenet’s Cendrillon, with a new translation by Kelley Rourke.

The 2021–22 season also includes the anticipated returns of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess and Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, and as always, there will be a full slate of repertory gems, all featuring opera’s greatest singers. One particular highlight is a trio of operas featuring sensational soprano Lise Davidsen, who stars as in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as Eva, in the title role of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, and in Strauss’s Elektra as Chrysothemis. Soprano Sonya Yoncheva also joins the select group of artists to give a solo recital on the Met stage.

The Met’s Live in HD series of cinema transmissions will return for the 2021–22 season with ten presentations, including all six new productions.

To provide as much flexibility as possible, the season includes a large number of earlier 7 PM curtain times, as well as several operas with reduced running times. For example, Boris Godunov will be presented in its original two-and-a-quarter-hour version without intermission, cuts will be made in Handel’s Rodelinda, and there will be no intermission between Acts II and III in Madama Butterfly.

2021–22 Ticket Availability

Tickets are now on sale to Patrons, Members ($150 Supporting level and above), Subscribers, and audience members with money on account or who donated their canceled performance tickets.

Ticket on-sale date for general public will be announced in summer 2021.