Carnegie Hall

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra is regarded as one of the world’s finest orchestras. From the time of the company’s inception in 1883, the ensemble has worked with leading conductors in both opera and concert performances, and has developed into an orchestra of enormous technical polish and style. The MET Orchestra (as the ensemble is referred to when appearing in concert outside the opera house) maintains a demanding schedule of performances and rehearsals during its 33-week New York season, when the company performs as many as seven times a week in repertory that this season encompasses 22 operas.

In addition to its opera schedule, the orchestra has a distinguished history of concert performances. Arturo Toscanini made his American debut as a symphonic conductor with The MET Orchestra in 1913, and the impressive list of instrumental soloists who have appeared with the orchestra includes Leopold Godowsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arthur Rubinstein, Pablo Casals, Josef Hofmann, Ferruccio Busoni, Jascha Heifetz, Moriz Rosenthal, and Fritz Kreisler. In recent years, instrumental and vocal soloists have included Itzhak Perlman, Maxim Vengerov, Alfred Brendel, Maurizio Pollini, Evgeny Kissin, Christian Tetzlaff, Anna Netrebko, Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Natalie Dessay, Diana Damrau, Christine Goerke, Joyce DiDonato, Matthew Polenzani, and Peter Mattei. The group has also performed six world premieres: Milton Babbitt’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (1998), William Bolcom’s Symphony No. 7 (2002), Hsueh-Yung Shen’s Legend (2002), Charles Wuorinen’s Theologoumenon (2007) and Time Regained (2009), and John Harbison’s Closer to My Own Life (2011).

Canadian-born conductor and pianist Yannick Nézet-Séguin became the Metropolitan Opera’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director with the beginning of the 2018–2019 season. He made his company debut in 2009 with a new production of Carmen and has since returned every season, conducting nearly 150 performances of 17 operas, as well as numerous galas and concerts with The MET Orchestra. During the 2021–2022 season, he conducted the historic company premieres of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, and the French version of Verdi’s Don Carlos, as well as a revival of Tosca and concerts of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 and Verdi’s Requiem, the latter commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11. He also took the podium to lead the company’s A Concert for Ukraine, which was presented in support of relief efforts for those affected by Russia’s invasion.

Mr. Nézet-Séguin has been music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra since 2012 and held the same position with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra—where he now serves as honorary conductor—between 2008 and 2018. Since 2000, he has served as artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain. From 2008 to 2014, he was principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and during the 2019–2020 season, he was a Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist. 

He enjoys close collaborations with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Vienna Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and has led performances at La Scala, Covent Garden, Dutch National Opera, Vienna State Opera, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, and the festivals of Salzburg, Edinburgh, Lucerne, Grafenegg, Lanaudière, Vail, and Saratoga. Recent recordings include his first solo piano album, Introspection: Solo Piano Sessions, as well as albums with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. He has been nominated for six Grammy Awards, winning Best Orchestral Performance earlier this year for his recording with The Philadelphia Orchestra of Florence Price’s symphonies nos. 1 and 3. In 2011, he began a cycle of seven Mozart operas for the Festival Hall Baden-Baden, which Deutsche Grammophon recorded live.

A graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, American soprano Christine Goerke made her Met debut in 1995 in John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles. Since then, she has sung more than 100 performances of 14 roles with the company, including the title roles of Turandot and Elektra, Brünnhilde in the Ring cycle, the Dyer’s Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Madame Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmélites. She returns during the 2022–2023 season to make her company role debut as Ortrud in François Girard’s new production of Wagner’s Lohengrin. She was also the host of the groundbreaking Met Stars Live in Concert series, and beginning with the 2021–2022 season, she serves as associate artistic director for Detroit Opera. 

Ms. Goerke has appeared at many of the world’s leading opera houses, including La Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opéra de Paris, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, and the Glimmerglass Festival, among many others. Her most recent appearances include Madame Lidoine at Houston Grand Opera; Elektra at Opéra de Paris, Vienna State Opera, and Canadian Opera Company; Marie in Wozzeck in concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra; Brünnhilde in Twilight: Gods at Michigan Opera Theatre; Isolde in Tristan und Isolde in concert at the Lucerne Festival and in Amsterdam; and Ortrud at Covent Garden.

Originally from Billings, Montana, tenor Brandon Jovanovich made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2010 as Don José in Carmen and has since appeared as Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos, the Prince in Rusalka, and Sergei in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, a celebrated portrayal that he will reprise during the company’s upcoming 2022–2023 season. During the 2021–2022 season, he also sings Siegmund in Die Walküre at Deutsche Oper Berlin; the title role of Parsifal at the Vienna State Opera; Bacchus, Enée in Les Troyens, and the Emperor in Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Bavarian State Opera; and the title role of Lohengrin at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Mr. Jovanovich’s recent performances include Parsifal at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Hermann in The Queen of Spades and Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Samson in Samson et Dalila at Staatsoper Berlin, Don José in Wiesbaden, Canio in Pagliacci at Dutch National Opera, Dick Johnson in La Fanciulla del West at the Bavarian State Opera, the Prince at San Francisco Opera, Florestan in Fidelio at the Vienna State Opera, and Enée at Opéra de Paris. He has also appeared at the Salzburg Festival, LA Opera, Opera Australia, Houston Grand Opera, and Glyndebourne Festival, among others. Next season, he sings Luigi in Il Tabarro in Barcelona, Laca in Jenůfa in Valencia, Florestan in Vienna, and the Prince in Bergen, Norway.

Hailing from Philadelphia, bass-baritone Eric Owens has sung nearly 100 performances of 12 roles at the Metropolitan Opera, including Philippe II in the company premiere of Don Carlos, Porgy in Porgy and Bess, Hagen in Götterdämmerung, Vodník in Rusalka, Jaufré Rudel in the company premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin, Orest in Elektra, Sarastro in The Magic Flute, Alberich in the Ring cycle, and General Leslie Groves in the company premiere of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic, which also marked his Met debut in 2008. He also recently appeared in the Met’s concert presentation of Verdi’s Requiem, which commemorated the 20th anniversary of 9/11. 

Elsewhere, Mr. Owens has sung Porgy at Dutch National Opera, Wotan in Siegfried and Die Walküre at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Philip II in Don Carlo and Stephen Kumalo in Weill’s Lost in the Stars at Washington National Opera, Don Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Houston Grand Opera, Méphistophélès in La Damnation de Faust in concert with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and the title role of Macbeth at the Glimmerglass Festival. In 2017, he was appointed artistic advisor of the Glimmerglass Festival. He serves on the board of trustees of both the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and Astral Artistic Services, and in 2019, he became co-chair of the Curtis Institute’s opera department.