New Star-Studded Season of Great Performances at the Met Begins March 17 on PBS
Season 17 of Great Performances at the Met returns with 10 new operas premiering March through December on PBS (check local listings). Featuring opera stars Sonya Yoncheva, Isabel Leonard, Matthew Polenzani and many more, the season includes Champion, the second Met Opera premiere by Grammy-winning composer Terence Blanchard, and the Met debut of Broadway stage director Ivo van Hove, with Don Giovanni. The season also includes two primetime operas: The Hours, starring Tony winner Kelli O’Hara, Joyce DiDonato and Renée Fleming in her highly anticipated return, premiering Friday, March 17 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings) and David McVicar’s Medea, premiering Friday, June 16 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings).
Great Performances at the Met Season 17 Opera Schedule:
The Hours – Premieres on Friday, March 17 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings)
Renée Fleming makes her return to the Met in this new opera by from Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Kevin Puts, adapted from Michael Cunningham’s novel, inspired by Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.” Also inspired by the 2002 Oscar-winning film, the opera follows three women from different eras who each grapple with inner demons and their roles in society. The opera also stars Tony winner Kelli O’Hara and opera star Joyce DiDonato. Phelim McDermott directs with Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting. Christine Baranski hosts.
La Traviata – Premieres beginning Sunday, April 2 at 2 p.m. on PBS (check local listings)
Nadine Sierra stars as the opera’s heroine, the self-sacrificing courtesan Violetta, with tenor Stephen Costello in the role of her self-centered lover, Alfredo, with baritone Luca Salsi as Alfredo’s disapproving father. Michael Mayer’s vibrant production is conducted by Daniele Callegari. Renée Fleming hosts.
Fedora – Premieres beginning Sunday, May 7 at 2 p.m. on PBS (check local listings)
Back at the Met for the first time in 25 years, Umberto Giordano’s drama stars soprano Sonya Yoncheva in the title role, a 19th-century Russian princess who falls in love with her fiancé’s murderer, Count Loris, sung by star tenor Piotr Beczała. Soprano Rosa Feola is the Countess Olga, Fedora’s confidant, and baritone Artur Ruciński is the diplomat De Siriex. Marco Armiliato conducts director David McVicar’s production, which features a set that unfolds revealing the opera’s three settings: A St. Petersburg palace, a fashionable Parisian salon and a villa in the Swiss Alps. Christine Goerke hosts.
Medea – Premieres Friday, June 16 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings)
Sondra Radvanovsky portrays the mythic sorceress in this Met premiere of Cherubini’s rarely performed masterpiece. This marks Radvanovsky’s fourth new production with director David McVicar, who also designed the sets for this staging. Joining Radvanovsky are tenor Matthew Polenzani as Medea’s husband, Giasone; soprano Janai Brugger as her rival for his love, Glauce; bass Michele Pertusi as her father, Creonte, the King of Corinth; and mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova as Medea’s confidante, Neris. Maestro Carlo Rizzi conducts. Joyce DiDonato hosts.
Lohengrin – Premieres beginning Sunday, July 9 at 2 p.m. on PBS (check local listings)
Back at the Met after 17 years, this production of Wagner’s opera is directed by François Girard with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting. Tenor Piotr Beczała leads the cast in the title role of the mysterious swan knight, with soprano Tamara Wilson as the virtuous duchess Elsa, falsely accused of murder, and soprano Christine Goerke as the cunning sorceress Ortrud. Bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin is Ortrud’s power-hungry husband, Telramund, and bass Günther Groissböck is King Heinrich. Christopher Maltman hosts.
Falstaff – Premieres beginning Sunday, August 6 at 2 p.m. on PBS (check local listings)
Verdi’s Shakespearean comedy features an ensemble cast in Robert Carsen’s staging, with baritone Michael Volle performing in his first Verdi role at the Met as the knight Falstaff, tormented by a trio of clever women who deliver his comeuppance. Reuniting after their acclaimed turns in the production’s 2019 run are soprano Ailyn Pérez as Alice Ford, soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano as Meg Page, and mezzo-soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Mistress Quickly. Soprano Hera Hyesang Park and tenor Bogdan Volkov are the young couple Nannetta and Fenton, and Maestro Daniele Rustioni conducts. Ryan Speedo Green hosts.
Der Rosenkavalier – Premieres beginning Sunday, September 10 at 2 p.m. on PBS (check local listings)
Strauss’s grand Viennese comedy includes soprano Lise Davidsen as the aging Marschallin, opposite mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard as her lover Octavian and soprano Erin Morley as Sophie, the beautiful younger woman who steals his heart. Bass Günther Groissböck returns as the churlish Baron Ochs, and Markus Brück is Sophie’s wealthy father, Faninal. Maestro Simone Young takes the Met podium to oversee Robert Carsen’s staging. Deborah Voigt hosts.
Don Giovanni – Premieres beginning Sunday, October 1 at 2 p.m. on PBS (check local listings)
Tony Award–winning director Ivo van Hove makes his Met debut with a new take on Mozart’s tragicomedy, re-setting the familiar tale of deceit and damnation in an abstract architectural landscape. Maestro Nathalie Stutzmann also makes her Met debut, conducting the cast led by baritone Peter Mattei in the title role alongside bass-baritone Adam Plachetka as Leporello. Sopranos Federica Lombardi, Ana María Martínez and Ying Fang portray Giovanni’s conquests—Donna Anna, Donna Elvira and Zerlina—and tenor Ben Bliss is Don Ottavio. Erin Morley hosts.
Champion – Premieres beginning Sunday, November 5 at 2 p.m. on PBS (check local listings)
Six-time Grammy Award–winning composer Terence Blanchard returns to the Met with bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green as a young boxer, Emile Griffith, who rises from obscurity to become a world champion. Bass-baritone Eric Owens portrays Griffith’s older self, haunted by the ghosts of his past with soprano Latonia Moore as Emelda Griffith, the boxer’s estranged mother, and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe plays the bar owner, Kathy Hagen. Fire Shut Up in My Bones’ conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, director James Robinson, and choreographer Camille A. Brown all return for this production. Lawrence Brownlee hosts.
Die Zauberflöte – Premieres beginning Sunday, December 10 at 2 p.m. on PBS (check local listings)
Director Simon McBurney, making his Met debut, creates a new Met staging for the first time in 19 years, using projections, sound effects, and acrobatics. Nathalie Stutzmann conducts the orchestra in a raised pit, allowing the musicians to interact with the cast and be visible to the audience. The cast includes soprano Erin Morley as Pamina, tenor Lawrence Brownlee as Tamino, baritone Thomas Oliemans in his Met debut as Papageno, soprano Kathryn Lewek as the Queen of the Night, and bass Stephen Milling as Sarastro. Ben Bliss hosts.
Great Performances at the Met is produced by the Metropolitan Opera in association with PBS and The WNET Group, bringing the best of the Metropolitan Opera into the homes of opera fans across the country. For the Met: Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances: Bill O’Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.
Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers. For Great Performances, funding is provided by The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Ellen and James S. Marcus, and Jody and John Arnhold.
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Under the leadership of General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Metropolitan Opera is one of America’s leading performing arts organizations and a vibrant home for the world’s most creative and talented artists, including singers, conductors, composers, orchestra musicians, stage directors, designers, visual artists, choreographers, and dancers. The Met stages more than 200 performances each season, ranging from early masterpieces, contemporary works, and new commissions. The Met has launched initiatives designed to make opera more accessible, most prominently the award-winning Live in HD series, which dramatically expands the Met audience by transmitting select performances to movie theaters across the globe.