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    Daniele Rustioni, Fixture at the Met Opera, Will Be Its Guest Conductor

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    Beginning next fall, Rustioni will lead at least two operas each season and help provide continuity for the Met as it rebuilds after a wave of retirements.Daniele Rustioni, an Italian conductor who has become a fixture of the Metropolitan Opera in recent years, has been named its principal guest conductor, the company announced on Wednesday.When he joins the Met next season, Rustioni, 41, will be tasked with helping to bring stability and continuity to the Met Orchestra whenever the company’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, an ever-busy maestro, is away. The ensemble is still working to rebuild after a wave of retirements during the pandemic.“The chemistry I feel with this orchestra and chorus is quite special,” Rustioni said in an interview. “They give an incredible amount of energy, and they are always super committed.”Rustioni, who will serve an initial three-year term, will lead at least two operas each season, the Met said. He is only the third person in the company’s 141-year history to hold the title of principal guest conductor. Fabio Luisi, the last maestro to occupy the post, was hired in 2010 when the Met was grappling with the unpredictable health problems of James Levine, its former music director.Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director since 2018, said that he and Rustioni had shared artistic values, and that “having Daniele in this elevated role is good for the orchestra, good for the chorus and good for opera.”Under Nézet-Séguin, the Met Orchestra has worked to recover from the pandemic, filling 17 vacancies and going on high-profile tours in Europe and Asia. But critics have raised concerns about the Met Orchestra’s quality and consistency.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Met Opera’s Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Yuval Sharon Will Team Up for ‘Ring’

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      Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the company’s music director, will extend his contract and lead Wagner’s four-opera epic, in a production staged by Yuval Sharon.Wagner’s “Ring” cycle is a mammoth undertaking for any opera company: a four-opera, 15-hour epic that features a cast of warriors, gods, giants and dwarves and some of the most daunting music in the repertoire.The Metropolitan Opera said on Tuesday that it would again stage opera’s most ambitious work, starting in the 2027-28 season, the company’s first new production of the “Ring” cycle in nearly two decades. And a familiar face will be on the podium: Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director since 2018, who is extending his contract through 2030.The production, which will be staged by the visionary theater director Yuval Sharon, is to feature the soprano Lise Davidsen, one of opera’s brightest stars, as Brünnhilde.Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said the company had decided to stage a new “Ring” in part for Nézet-Séguin.“Every music director of a major opera company expects and deserves to have a ‘Ring’ cycle,” he said. “It’s the crowning achievement, the biggest thing you can do in opera.”Nézet-Séguin, 49, whose new contract covers a six-year term, said he was looking forward to the “Ring,” calling it an “extremely intimate affair.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Anna Netrebko, Shunned in U.S. Over Putin Support, to Sing in Palm Beach

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      The star soprano, who lost work at American opera companies after Russia invaded Ukraine, will sing at a gala for Palm Beach Opera, her first American engagement since 2019.Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the superstar soprano Anna Netrebko has been persona non grata at cultural institutions in the United States, shunned for her past support of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.But in February, Ms. Netrebko will make her first appearance in the United States since 2019: She will perform in Florida at a gala concert at the Breakers Palm Beach hotel to benefit Palm Beach Opera, the company announced on Wednesday.Ms. Netrebko, one of the biggest stars in classical music, has in recent months returned to many top concert halls and opera houses in Paris, Milan, Berlin and elsewhere in Europe, prompting some protests but also winning ovations and strong reviews.But most American institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera, where she reigned as a prima donna for two decades, have continued to refuse to engage her because of her past support for Mr. Putin and her unwillingness to criticize him now. Her last performance in the United States was before the pandemic, when she headlined a gala New Year’s Eve performance at the Met Opera.In a statement, Ms. Netrebko said she was looking forward to singing in Florida.“I am honored to be lending my voice to the Palm Beach Opera’s annual gala,” she said. “I am excited to spend time in this beautiful community.”James Barbato, who leads the Palm Beach Opera, said in a statement that Ms. Netrebko was “more than a great artist with a magnetic stage presence and a voice of breathtaking beauty and power.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      France’s Army Is Singing for Ukraine

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      The Choir of the French Army will join the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in Paris to show support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.When President Emmanuel Macron of France refused in February to rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine, he shattered a taboo and spooked his NATO allies. But five months later, his statement looks more like a provocation than a promise, and the idea of French boots on the ground seems a distant prospect.There are other ways, however, that France’s military can aid the Ukrainian cause.In a Paris church on Friday, 30 members of the Choir of the French Army will lend their voices to a free concert to honor Ukraine’s fighting spirit.“We are here on a mission,” said the conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson during a recent rehearsal for the concert, “a mission to support Ukraine, on the artistic and cultural front.”Then she led the singers of the all-male military choir, joined by 30 female members of a Ukrainian vocal ensemble, through a rendition of the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the famous “Ode to Joy.” The massed voices soared in the echoing space.At Friday’s concert, Wilson, a Canadian with Ukrainian roots, will conduct the singers alongside the 74-musician Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in Saint-Eustache church. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the orchestra — some of whose members still live in the country at war — have been coming together each summer to perform across Europe, with Wilson conducting.The concert in Paris is the first stop on the orchestra’s third tour. The ensemble will perform with local choirs when it plays concerts in London, Poland and the United States, where it will perform in Washington and, on Aug. 1, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Four Takeaways From the Metropolitan Opera’s Risky Season

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      The company has bet that new operas will attract new, more diverse audiences and revitalize a stale repertory. Is the gamble paying off?For years, the Metropolitan Opera — the nation’s largest performing arts institution, with a $300 million budget and 4,000-seat theater — was like an ocean liner, changing course slowly, if at all.But now it is trying to be more like a speedboat. Since the pandemic, with costs up and ticket sales down, the Met’s programming has taken a sharp swerve toward contemporary works, which used to come along once in a blue moon. In recent seasons, the Met has done fewer productions than it used to, but about a third of its operas now come from our times.Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, has staked a large part of his legacy on the bet that these new operas will attract new and more diverse audiences, revitalizing a house repertory better known for presenting “Tosca” and “La Traviata,” year after year. With the Met entering its summer break this week, is that bet paying off, artistically and financially?The experiment is, at best, a work in progress.The Met put on 18 operas during this so-so season, and if you line them up in order of paid attendance, only one of the six contemporary pieces, Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” is in the top half. Modern opera is not selling well, at least not better than classics like “The Magic Flute,” “Carmen” and “Turandot.”The Met’s economic model revolves around being able to efficiently bring back most pieces and have them find an audience. But this season raised alarms about how newer titles will do when revived. Gelb’s gamble on swiftly restaging two top sellers of recent seasons — Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and Kevin Puts’s “The Hours” — fizzled, with the theater over a third empty for both. (The average performance across the season was 72 percent full.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Audiences Are Returning to the Met Opera, but Not for Everything

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      The Met is approaching prepandemic levels of attendance. But its strategy of staging more modern operas to lure new audiences is having mixed success.Four years after the coronavirus brought the curtain down on the Metropolitan Opera, audiences are nearly back, the company announced on Thursday. But the company’s big bet on contemporary opera this season had mixed results.The Met, which has been facing serious fiscal challenges, said that the 2023-24 season ended this month with 72 percent paid attendance overall, approaching the 75 percent it had in the last full season before the pandemic.About a third of this season was devoted to contemporary operas, and those by living composers, as it works to connect with younger and more diverse audiences. Some were hits: Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” drew 78 percent attendance, behind only Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” Bizet’s “Carmen” and Puccini’s “Turandot.”But two recent operas that had drawn sold-out crowds in previous seasons fared less well when they were revived: Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up In My Bones” drew 65 percent attendance, and Kevin Puts’s “The Hours,” which reunited the stars Renée Fleming, Kelli O’Hara and Joyce DiDonato, drew 61 percent.Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said the mix of old and new operas was helping drive a recovery at the box office by bringing new people into the opera house. But the company still faces significant obstacles. The Met, whose credit rating was downgraded in February by Moody’s Investors Service, has withdrawn about $70 million in emergency funds from its endowment over the past two seasons to help cover costs.“We believe we’re on the right path artistically,” he said. “But we’re still climbing out of the hole that the pandemic left us in.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lileana Blain-Cruz Directs ‘El Niño’ For Her Met Opera Debut

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      When Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera’s general manger, asked the director Lileana Blain-Cruz what she wanted to stage, she didn’t need any time to think about her answer: “El Niño.”A couple of years ago, she had already been hired to direct Missy Mazzoli’s “Lincoln in the Bardo,” an adaptation of the George Saunders novel that will premiere in the 2026-27 season, but Gelb was curious about what else she might be interested in.Long a fan of John Adams and his collaborations with the director-librettist Peter Sellars, Blain-Cruz particularly loved their 2000 oratorio “El Niño,” a blending of the Nativity story with ancient and modern texts, like poetry by Rosario Castellanos and Gabriela Mistral.“It makes you weep, and you don’t expect it,” Blain-Cruz said of the piece. “It shook me and stayed in my imagination for a while after I heard it, but I didn’t know when I would have a chance to make it happen onstage myself.”Gelb quickly said yes. Now, Blain-Cruz’s production of “El Niño” will premiere at the Met on Tuesday, bringing with it the return of the brilliant mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges and the long-awaited house debuts of Julia Bullock, Davóne Tines and the conductor Marin Alsop.Davóne Tines, center, makes his Met debut in “El Niño. Costumes are by Montana Levi Blanco. Lila Barth for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukrainian Conductor Oksana Lyniv Arrives at the Met Opera

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      Oksana Lyniv, who is leading “Turandot” at the Metropolitan Opera, has used her platform to criticize Russia and promote Ukrainian culture.The Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv was preparing for a performance of Puccini’s “Turandot” at the Metropolitan Opera this month when she saw the news: A Russian drone had hit a building in Odesa, not far from the home of her parents-in-law.She called her family to ensure they were safe. But images of the attack, whose victims included a young mother and children, lingered in her mind. When she conducted that night, she felt the pain of war more acutely, she said, praying to herself when Liù, a selfless servant, dies in the opera’s final act and the chorus turns hushed.“In that moment, I saw all the suffering of the war,” she said. “How do you explain such sadness? How do you explain who gets to be alive and who has to die?”Since the invasion, Lyniv, 46, the first Ukrainian conductor to perform at the Met, has used her platform to denounce Russia’s government. She has also set out to promote Ukrainian culture, championing works by Ukrainian composers and touring Europe with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, an ensemble that she founded in 2016.The war has raised difficult questions for artists and cultural institutions. Russian performers have come under pressure to speak out against President Vladimir V. Putin. Ukrainians have faced questions too, including whether to perform Russian works or appear alongside Russian artists.Lyniv, who now lives in Düsseldorf, Germany, has sometimes felt caught in the middle. She protested last month when a festival in Vienna announced plans to pair her appearance with a concert led by the conductor Teodor Currentzis, who has come under scrutiny over his connections to Russia. (The festival canceled his appearance.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At the Met Opera, the Show Goes On After a Technical Mishap

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      The company put on a semi-staged version of Puccini’s “Turandot” at the last minute, after a backstage lift got jammed.The Metropolitan Opera’s production of Puccini’s “Turandot” is one of the most lavish and intricate in the company’s repertoire, a spectacle that includes an imperial palace, a glittering throne room and expansive gardens.But on Wednesday evening, audience members had to make do without the opera’s usual visual delights. A jam in the Met’s main lift backstage forced the company to put on a semi-staged version at the last minute, with the cast and chorus singing from an improvised set instead.Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, walked onstage before the show to explain the situation.“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to say that this is not going to be a normal night at the opera,” he said. “Although our scenery will not be working, the show will go on.”Audience members were offered a refund if they wished to leave, and about 150 people did, the Met said. But most stayed, offering a hearty applause when the conductor, Oksana Lyniv, entered the pit. (The Met, which has about 3,800 seats, said that the performance’s paid attendance was about 80 percent of capacity before the problem was announced.)Gelb said in an interview that the machinery jammed around 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, while the Met was changing sets for “Turandot” after a rehearsal for Puccini’s “La Rondine,” which opens next week. Crew members tried using saws to cut through steel bars to free the lift, but their efforts were unsuccessful.By about 6:30 p.m., one hour before the show was to begin, Gelb had to make a decision: cancel the show, or move forward with a pared-down version. He said he was reluctant to turn audiences away.“Everybody rallied together,” he said.The Met used a piece of scenery from the second act of “Turandot” — a wall in the imperial palace — as a backdrop, to provide some color. The action was confined to roughly the first 20 feet of the stage.Gelb tried to encourage the singers by telling them that their music would be more powerful, telling the tenor SeokJong Baek that when he sang the famous aria “Nessun dorma,” “you’ll be that much closer the audience.”Technical mishaps have rarely stopped productions at the Met. In 1966, when the Lincoln Center house was opened, a turntable malfunctioned at a dress rehearsal for Barber’s “Antony and Cleopatra.” The soprano Leontyne Price narrowly escaped being trapped inside the pyramid on top of it. And in 2011, a performance of Wagner’s “Die Walküre” was delayed for 45 minutes because of a technical problem with the 45-ton set.Gelb said that he expected things to be back to normal in time for a performance of Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” on Thursday.“Tonight as soon as show ends,” he said, “it will be all hands on deck to free this lift.” More