Carnegie Hall

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra is regarded as one of the world’s finest orchestras. Since the Met’s inception in 1883, it has worked with leading conductors in both opera and concert performances, and has developed into an orchestra of enormous technical polish and style. The musicians maintain a demanding schedule of performances and rehearsals during the 33-week Lincoln Center season, with as many as seven performances per week in repertory that this season encompasses 18 operas. In addition to its opera schedule, the orchestra has a distinguished history of concert performances, including an annual series at Carnegie Hall.

The history of the Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble goes back to 1998, when then–Music Director James Levine organized the group’s first performance at Carnegie Hall in an effort to showcase the artistry and virtuosity of the orchestra members, and to create an opportunity for the musicians to perform more intimate repertoire. The chamber ensemble gave performances until 2016, when the concerts were discontinued.

In 2021, the group returned in a new initiative of the Met, with an artistic committee of orchestra members planning its repertoire in collaboration with Met administration and music staff. All orchestra members have the opportunity to participate in the series, and the programs often feature guest singers from the Met’s roster. This season, the chamber ensemble presents six performances in Weill Recital Hall.

Visit metorchestramusicians.org to read bios for individual orchestra members.

A 2021 recipient of the Met’s Beverly Sills Artist Award, established by Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo began performing professionally at the age of 11 and has since appeared in opera, concert, recital, film, and on Broadway. He was recently awarded a Grammy Award, an honorary doctorate from Manhattan School of Music, a visiting fellowship from Oxford University, and the History Makers Award from the New-York Historical Society, and this spring he is a distinguished visiting scholar at Harvard.

He made his Met debut in 2011 as Unulfo in Rodelinda and has since appeared with the company as the title character of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, Ferdinand and Prospero in the Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island, and Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus. He returns later this spring to star as Orfeo in a revival of Orfeo ed Euridice. Elsewhere, he appears as Medoro in Orlando at Madrid’s Teatro Real, Francisco in Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel at the Opéra de Paris, and Jonathan in the world premiere of Gregory Spears’s The Righteous at the Santa Fe Opera; gives solo recitals at the Kennedy Center and Boston’s Jordan Hall; and makes his debut at London’s Wigmore Hall.

He appeared in the world premieres of Jimmy López Bellido’s Bel Canto at Lyric Opera of Chicago and Jake Heggie’s Great Scott at The Dallas Opera and has also premiered works by Matthew Aucoin, Paola Prestini, Gregory Spears, Suzanne Farrin, Bernard Rands, Scott Wheeler, Mohammed Fairouz, Steve Mackey, and Nico Muhly. As a producer, he has created projects for Opera Philadelphia, the New York Philharmonic, BBC Proms, WQXR, and St. Ann’s Warehouse, among others. His debut album, ARC, was nominated for a Grammy Award, and his live show and second album with cabaret legend Justin Vivian Bond, Only an Octave Apart, received numerous “Best of 2021” accolades, ranging from TIME magazine to The New York Times and The Washington Post. He was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his performance in the Merchant-Ivory film A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries. Mr. Costanzo graduated with honors from Princeton University, where he has returned to teach, and Manhattan School of Music, where he is on the board of trustees; he also serves on the board of National Black Theater.

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 more than 150 performances of 24 operas, as well as numerous galas and concerts with the Met Orchestra. During the 2023–2024 season, he takes the podium to conduct the Met premieres of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, a new production of La Forza del Destino, a revival of Roméo et Juliette, Verdi’s Requiem, and concerts with the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

He 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. He also 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 Terence Blanchard’s Champion and Fire Shut Up in My Bones, A Concert for Ukraine, Verdi’s Requiem: The Met Remembers 9/11, and Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice with the Met; his first solo piano album, Introspection: Solo Piano Sessions; Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene with soprano Renée Fleming; and recordings with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. He has been nominated for 13 Grammy Awards, winning most recently for conducting the Met’s recording of Champion.