The Metropolitan Opera’s 2015-16 season will present 227 opera performances in a varied repertory, ranging from rarely performed masterpieces to perennial audience favorites.  

The season features six new productions:

Verdi’s Otello, opening the season on September 21, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and directed by Bartlett Sher;

Berg’s Lulu (November 5), conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and directed by visual artist William Kentridge in his first Met staging since the acclaimed company premiere of The Nose;

Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles (December 31), which will have its first Met performances in nearly a century, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda and directed by Penny Woolcock;

Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (February 12)conducted by Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi and directed by Richard Eyre;

the company premiere of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux (March 24), conducted by Maurizio Benini and directed by David McVicar;

Richard Strauss’s Elektra (April 14), conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen in the final opera production by the late Patrice Chéreau.

All six new productions will be featured in the tenth season of The Met: Live in HD series, which will feature ten transmissions beginning on October 3 with Il Trovatore, starring Anna Netrebko as Leonora. Netrebko will also make her New York recital debut in a solo concert on the stage of the Met on February 28, 2016.

The 2015-16 season was announced by Met General Manager Peter Gelb and Met Music Director James Levine, whose conducting duties for the season include the new production of Berg’s Lulu; revivals of Wagner’s Tannhäuser; Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus; Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, with Plácido Domingo in the title role; and Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail; and a series of three MET Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall.  [Online Brochure]

Photograph by Kristian Schuller/ Metropolitan Opera

La Cieca

James Jorden (who wrote under the names "La Cieca" and "Our Own JJ") was the founder and editor of parterre box. During his 20 year career as an opera critic he wrote for the New York Times, Opera, Gay City News, Opera Now, Musical America and the New York Post. He also raised his voice in punditry on National Public Radio. From time to time he directed opera, including three unsuccessful productions of Don Giovanni. He also contributed a regular column on opera for the New York Observer. James died in October 2023.

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