Highlights of the Met’s 2025-26 Season

Mar 14

A set design by Es Devlin for *Tristan und Isolde* (Met Opera)

On February 19, the Met Opera announced their 2025-26 season. Their opening-night opera, the world premiere of Mason Bates’ The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, is one of only three new operas (unless you count Porgy and Bess), marking a departure from the six new operas presented only two seasons ago. This may indicate that the Met is settling towards favoring the classics in the heated battle of the new and the old. After a two-season absence, bel canto explodes back onto the stage with three operas, Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment and Bellini’s I Puritani and La Sonnambula. The last of these is a new production directed by tenor-turned-baritone Rolando Villazón and starring the divine Nadine Sierra as the title sleepwalker. There are also plenty of revivals of the most classic operas, such as:

La Traviata, starring Lisette Oropesa and Rosa Feola, with two performances for Arturo Chacón-Cruz, who’s been a presence in Europe for decades and finally made it to the Met last fall with a surprise debut as a cover (save the date for April 7 to see him with Lisette).
Carmen, including Matthew Polenzani as Don José (looking forward to seeing one of the sweetest tenors out there commit onstage murder) and Aigul Akhmetshina in the title role (I missed her two seasons ago, but I won’t this time).
Don Giovanni, with Ryan Speedo Green and Kyle Ketelsen as the serial womanizer of the title, and Guanqun Yu as Donna Anna, who returns to the Met for the first time since 2019. I’ve never been to see her sing, so I’m excited to finally do so.
Even an HD of La Bohème, with rapidly rising soprano and 2022 Operalia winner Juliana Grigoryan as Mimì. Given how few of La Bohème’s runs make it to the cinemas, this speaks to how much faith management has in Grigoryan’s future.

These are only parts of the amazing casts of these operas, because if I were to list every casting decision I’m thrilled about, we’d be here until opening night. I wasn’t able to choose only five operas that I’m thrilled about to explore here, so we’re expanding to six for this year only (but who knows?). Read on.

Andrea Chénier

If I had a nickel for every opera set in the Reign of Terror, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. The opera most associated with the French Revolution is Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, but Giordano’s Andrea Chénier is a classic verismo (“realistic”) opera — set in France but sung in Italian —, based on real events with the requisite tragic love story. The real André Chénier was a pre-Romantic poet guillotined in 1784, and Maddalena di Coigny, who chooses to die with her beloved Chénier, seems to have been inspired by Aimée de Coigny, a noblewoman and famed beauty who was in fact imprisoned with Chénier. He even wrote an elegy to her, La Jeune Captive (The Young Captive), but she was freed the day she was to die with him.

No such half-happy ending for the lovers in the opera, sung by superstars Sonya Yoncheva and Piotr Beczała. They were last seen together by Met audiences in 2023 in another of Giordano’s operas, the vastly underrated Fedora, garnering rave reviews (including from me). Igor Golovatenko plays Carlo Gérard, who denounces and then fails to save Chénier. Happily, the Met is going to give us an international HD screening on December 13, which will eventually make it onto the Met’s streaming service for posterity.

Dates: November 24, 28, December 3, 6, 9, 13

Cast: Daniele Rustioni (conductor), Sonya Yoncheva, Piotr Beczała, Igor Golovatenko

La Fille du Régiment

La Fille du Régiment’s most famous aria is “Ah, mes amis… Pour mon âme,” featuring no fewer than nine high C’s for the brave tenor secretly shaking in his shoes. Wait, scratch that. Donizetti actually wrote eight high C’s, but tenors routinely add a ninth because when you got it, flaunt it. A reliable crowd-pleaser, “Pour mon âme” is one of the most encored of arias, often bringing the grand total up to 18 high C’s. However, it’s wrong to focus only on “Ah, mes amis” when Donizetti’s delightful comedy is chock-full of hummable fireworks, requiring a top-notch cast. It should be noted that, unlike Andrea Chénier, this is one of the few Italian operas with a French libretto, as befits the setting in France.

The jaw-dropping coloratura soprano Erin Morley sings Marie, the tomboy brought up in a military regiment. Esteemed bel canto tenor Lawrence Brownlee, sings Tonio, the Tyrolean who joins the enemy to be near his beloved Marie (and sings those nine high C’s). The always-formidable mezzo-soprano Alice Coote plays Marie’s also-formidable mother aunt, the Marquise de Berkenfield, who sweeps her off the battlefield to a sophisticated life. No word yet on the star who will play the non-singing role of the Duchess of Krakenthorp, whose intepreters have ranged from Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Bea Arthur to Kathleen Turner. Peter Kálmán plays Marie’s papa-in-chief, Sergeant Sulpice.

Dates: October 17, 23, 26, November 3, 8, 12

Cast: Giacomo Sagripanti (conductor), Erin Morley, Lawrence Brownlee, Alice Coote, Peter Kálmán

Innocence

One of the lines that new operas have to walk is how to depict modernity while not turning off audiences who want an escape from reality. It took the illustrious Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, may she rest in peace, to create a successful school shooting opera, which must have been a hard sell. Innocence was the last opera Saariaho completed before her death in 2023, and it met with nearly-universal acclaim from critics after its 2021 world premiere, despite school shootings being one of the last things people want to see or hear more about nowadays.

For me to dare the expected emotional toll, the presence of a great is required. Fortunately, Joyce DiDonato sings Tereza, the mother of a victim (Finnish ethno-pop artist Vilma Jää). That frightens me even more, because Joyce is a consummate actress with a knack for stabbing hearts and twisting the knife. Kathleen Kim, Jacquelyn Stucker, Miles Mykkanen, and Rod Gilfry round out the principal cast. It’s also a Dead Man Walking reunion of sorts; Gilfry played a grieving father to Joyce’s Sister Helen Prejean in 2023, for which she won a Girl of the Golden Met Award. Weigh it carefully, but Innocence will not be in cinemas, so if you can handle it, go.

Dates: April 6, 11, 14, 18, 22, 25, 29

Cast: Susanna Mälkki (conductor), Joyce DiDonato, Jacquelyn Stucker, Kathleen Kim, Miles Mykkanen, Rod Gilfry, Stephen Milling, Lucy Shelton, Vilma Jää, Beate Mordal, Julie Hega, Simon Kluth, Camilo Delgado Díaz, Marina Dumont Anastassiadou

Madama Butterfly

Easily one of the most soul-crushing operas in the repertory, this is one of the few classics I’ve never been able to drag myself to, despite the undeniable beauty of the score and Anthony Minghella’s production. 15-year-old geisha Cio-Cio-San’s marriage to the no-goodnik Pinkerton amounts to statutory rape, ravishing love duet or not, and she ends up committing ritual suicide after he abandons her. Still, it’s an enduringly popular opera and gets a revival at the Met every two years, directly inspiring the Vietnam-War musical Miss Saigon.

However, next season, I plan to finally grab a family-size box of tissues and see Madama Butterfly, solely for the incredible cast(s). I am even going to do this to myself twice (I don’t think I can handle going three times). Ailyn Pérez — the Queen of the Butterflies —, the majestic Sonya Yoncheva, and the velvet-voiced Elena Stikhina trade off as Cio-Cio-San from January to March. Their Pinkertons are, respectively: SeokJong Baek, a rising star and Girl of the Golden Met Award winner; Adam Smith, excitingly making his debut; and dear Matthew Polenzani, who hasn’t missed a season at the Met since his debut in 1997. Sonya’s Sharpless is Quinn Kelsey, Verdi baritone par excellence, in his only role of the Met season (I know, WHAT?!).

Dates: January 9, 13, 17, 21, 24, March 10, 11, 14, 18, 19, 21, 23, 27, 28

Cast: Marco Armiliato/Carlo Rizzi (conductor), Ailyn Pérez/Sonya Yoncheva/Elena Stikhina, SeokJong Baek/Adam Smith/Matthew Polenzani, Hyona Kim/Jennifer Johnson Cano, Andrzej Filończyk/Quinn Kelsey

I Puritani

Set during the English Civil War with a love story between a Puritan (surprise) and a Royalist, Bellini’s last opera has the distinction of having a heroine who’s insane for almost two of its three-plus hours. I’m not crazy about the story of a girl who literally loses her mind over a boy, but that would eliminate Lucia di Lammermoor too, which is one of the most gorgeous bel canto operas in history, and the madness in Puritani nicely mirrors the civil war setting. So let’s set aside the overtones of sexism and focus on the dazzling score (the quarter-hour mad scene is matched only by the one in Lucia) and cast.

Lisette Oropesa, Cuban-American soprano from New Orleans, sings Elvira, the abandoned bride. Lisette is one of the world’s finest bel canto singers, but has appeared sparsely at the Met in recent years. A New Year’s Eve new-production premiere of a rareishly performed Bellini opera looks like the perfect vehicle for her talents. The previously mentioned Lawrence Brownlee plays Arturo, who reluctantly leaves her on their wedding day to rescue a royal fugitive. Two excellent baritones complete the main quartet of singers: Artur Ruciński, as the groom Elvira abandoned, and Christian Van Horn, as Elvira’s kindly uncle. Look out for the baritone duet in Act 2!

Dates: December 31, January 3, 6, 10, 15, 18

Cast: Marco Armiliato (conductor), Lisette Oropesa, Lawrence Brownlee, Artur Ruciński, Christian Van Horn

Tristan und Isolde

Two enemies decide to down poison together but the handmaid swaps it for a love potion. What could possibly go wrong? Everything, of course, but the accidental lovers get three irrationally passionate love duets in Act 2 alone and die within twenty minutes of each other — he dies from complications of a duel, she dies a Wagnerian Soprano Death, meaning that she dies because the story calls for it, not of any medical cause. The blockbuster new staging is from Yuval Sharon, American director of Israeli descent and the Artistic Director of the Detroit Opera, who takes the helm for his Met debut.

Lise Davidsen, the gargantuan-voiced dramatic soprano at the top of the opera world, sings her first full Isolde — something her fans have been eagerly awaiting for nearly a decade. Baritenor Michael Spyres sings Tristan, and Ekaterina Gubanova, who has become something of a regular at Wagner’s Bayreuth Festival, plays Isolde’s faithful confidante, Brangäne. Two baritones rapidly approaching stardom complete the cast: Tomasz Konieczny, as Tristan’s servant Kurwenal, and Ryan Speedo Green, as King Marke, Tristan’s friend and Isolde’s betrothed (uh-oh).

Dates: March 9, 13, 17, 21, 25, 29, April 2

Cast: Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor), Lise Davidsen, Michael Spyres, Ekaterina Gubanova, Tomasz Konieczny, Ryan Speedo Green

Other 2025-26 new productions: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, starring Andrzej Filończyk and Miles Mykkanen; El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, starring Isabel Leonard and Carlos Álvarez, and La Sonnambula, starring Nadine Sierra and Xabier Anduaga.

Other revivals: Arabella, starring Rachel Willis-Sørensen; La Bohème, starring Juliana Grigoryan/Angel Blue/Aleksandra Kurzak; Carmen, starring Isabel Leonard/Aigul Akhmetshina; Don Giovanni, starring Ryan Speedo Green/Kyle Ketelsen; Eugene Onegin, starring Asmik Grigorian; Porgy and Bess, starring Alfred Walker and Brittany Renee; La Traviata, starring Lisette Oropesa/Amanda Woodbury/Rosa Feola/Ermonela Jaho; and Turandot, starring Angela Meade/Rebecca Nash/Anna Pirozzi/Liudmyla Monastyrska.