Bernie Williams went to Berlin. Not for the Christmas Market at Potsdamer Platz. Not for hardgroove and poppers at Berghain. He went because Jonathan Tetelman—Chilean-American tenor, star, chaos agent—invited him to the Deutsche Oper to rehearse Puccini.

Yes, Puccini. Take a moment.

Now before you clench, Williams, as it turns out, is inconveniently qualified. Besides four World Series rings, he has a background as a classical guitarist, a 20-year jazz career, a Latin Grammy nomination, and a degree from Manhattan School of Music.

What do you have, dear reader?

Tetelman, meanwhile, continues his brisk, almost insolent quest to ignore the invisible rules of how a tenor is “supposed” to behave. Major houses and major roles. But no fear of pleasure, glamour, or collaboration. He invites a baseball legend into opera not to democratize it, but because opera—at its best—has always been a magnet for excessive talent and excessive personalities. This ain’t ~outreach~.

On Tuesday, January 13, 2026, at 8 PM, the experiment becomes manifest at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. The program slides kinda sluttily between Italian opera, Latin songs everyone secretly knows by heart (thank you Three Tenors; there’s just one now)… Broadway chestnuts, communal drinking music, devotional melodrama, and Bernie Williams’ own jazz compositions. No genre is safe. But no genre is harmed. Members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra will appear, support, and defend.

Pianist William Hicks is there to do what his kind does. Musical director Brian Holman will probably just stand there.

Violinist Katia Reguero Lindor performs. And for the “sports gays” (bless your hearts, all four of you) her husband, Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, will be in the hall. Stephon Marbury appears, because reality has officially jumpshotted the shark. Haley Swindal—Broadway producer, Steinbrenner descendant—shows up, tying the Yankees mythology into a neat little gothic bow. Be on the lookout for Stevie Mackey‘s crispy line-up, Darren Rovell‘s talking head, and former Mets infielder José Reyes’… well, everything. New York is simply going to eat itself!

Yes, somewhere on YouTube, you’re typing: Is this how opera reaches new audiences?

Babe, you’re blocked. Opera doesn’t need saving. It needs audacity. It needs artists who aren’t embarrassed by pleasure, hybridity, ambition, and spectacle. Goddd, remember spectacle!? It needs people willing to cross rooms, cross genres, cross themselves.

This night does that and means it.

Carnegie Hall. January 13. Limited tickets remain.

Don’t worry—you can tell people you went “ironically.”

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