Met Opera to double cast Verdi and Puccini, as well as shift contemporary works from Saturdays
Met Opera to double cast Verdi and Puccini, as well as shift contemporary works from Saturdays
The Metropolitan Opera will double cast a portion of Verdi and Puccini revivals and shift some contemporary compositions away from Saturdays at the recommendation of a consultant trying to boost the company’s finances.
The 2025-26 season announced Wednesday will be the third straight with 18 productions, down from 28 in 2007-08. There will be six new-to-the Met stagings for the third consecutive season, including three company premieres.
Revivals comprise 79% of the 196 staged performances, up from 71% in the current season. Verdi’s “La Traviata” will appear 21 times and there will be 52 showings of Puccini staples: 20 of “La Bohème,” 17 of “Turandot” and 15 of “Madama Butterfly.”
“Butterfly” will be presented starring Sonya Yoncheva on March 18 and with Elena Stikhina the following day, and “Traviata” with Rosa Feola on May 8 and Ermonela Jaho the next day,
“Amongst the recommendations that we’ve had from Boston Consulting Group was for those operas that we play fairly regularly to play more of them and have runs that include more than one cast so that we don’t have to constantly be moving scenery in and out the theater,” Met general manager Peter Gelb said.
Gelb said the consultants also recommended fewer split runs, in which an opera appears in different parts of the season. The Met has instituted weekly cost-monitoring meetings among department heads but has not taken from its endowment this season after withdrawing $40 million in 2023-24.
Met attendance was 70% of available tickets in the season’s first half, down from 73% at the same point last year, but the company projects finishing the season at 75%, up from 72%.
Jeanine Tesori’s “Grounded” opened the season and sold 50%, the lowest of 10 productions, and Osvaldo Golijov’s “Ainadamar” sold 61%. An English-language revival of Julie Taylor’s staging of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” at holiday time led with 82%, followed by Michael Mayer’s new production of Verdi’s “Aida” at 79%.
Mason Bates’ “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” opens next season on Sept. 21 and will get seven performances — the maximum for the new stagings. Gelb said there have been revisions to increase prominence of some characters since its world premiere with a student cast at Indiana University in November.
“Kavalier” was not included among the Met’s eight high definition video simulcasts to theaters around the world. Gelb said the Met’s broadcast audience was 55% of its pre-pandemic level and newer works get publicity in the New York area but not in Europe, which draws half the HD viewers.
“By emphasizing more of the staple repertoire and fewer new works it gives us the opportunity for the live in HD to remain profitable,” he said.
Other new-to-the-Met stagings are Rolando Villazón’s production of Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” (opening Oct. 6), first seen at Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in June 2021 and postponed by the Met from 2023-24 because of budget cuts; Carlos Edwards production of Bellini’s “I Puritani” (New Year’s Eve); Yuval Sharon’s staging of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” starring Lise Davidsen (March 9); Kaija Saariaho’s last opera, “Innocence” (April 6), in a Simon Stone production from its premiere at Aix-en-Provence, France, in July 2021; and “El ultimó sueño de Frida y Diego” by Grammy Award winner Gabriela Lena Frank and Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz (May 14) in a Deborah Colker staging.
Among Met commissions, Carlos Simon’s opera for 2026-27 has been renamed “In the Rush” from “The Highlands” and Huang Ruo’s The Wedding Banquet” will open the 2027-28 season.
Ivo Van Hove’s production of Weill’s “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” and Claus Guth’s staging of Handel’s “Semele” have been scheduled for 2027-28.
Handel stagings of “Alcina” by Richard Jones and “Ariodante” by Robert Carsen remain on track for future seasons along with Simon McBurney’s production of Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina.”
Plans were dropped for Kevin Newbury’s staging of Donizetti’s “La Favorite.” Barrie Kosky’s production of Prokofiev’s “The Fiery Angel” from the canceled 2020-21 season remains on hold.
By RONALD BLUM
Associated Press
