This afternoon, after breaking the tragic news that Baltimore Opera seems to be on its last legs, Opera Chic added the startling tidbit that even the mighty Met is planning major cutbacks for next year. The blog says (with no source offered) that the company “is about to excise four [productions?] from their 2009-10 season.”

Per Brad Wilber c/o Sieglinde, the Met’s ambitous 100% Peter Gelb-planned season is projected as follows:

New productions: Tosca, From the House of the Dead, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Carmen, Attila, The Nose, Hamlet, Armida.

Repertory: Le nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte, Aida, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Der Rosenkavalier, Turandot, La Damnation de Faust, Il trittico, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Hansel and Gretel, Stiffelio, Simon Boccanegra, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, La Fille du Regiment, La boheme, The Ghosts of Versailles, Der Fliegende Hollander, Benvenuto Cellini, Lulu.

So if four of these productions are fated to fall by the wayside, which do you think most likely to be axed? And, while we’re discussing, which four do you think should be axed?