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 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 encompassed 18 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 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, 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 more than 150 performances of 24 operas, as well as numerous galas and concerts with the Met Orchestra. During the 2023–2024 season, he conducted 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. Later this month, he leads the Met Orchestra on its first-ever Asian concert tour, conducting performances in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.

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 received four Grammy Awards (of 13 nominations), winning most recently for conducting the Met’s recording of Champion.

A native of New Orleans, Louisiana, soprano Lisette Oropesa was the 2019 recipient of the Metropolitan Opera’s Beverly Sills Artist Award, established by Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman. She is a graduate of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and made her debut with the company in 2006 as a Woman of Crete in Idomeneo. In the years since, she has sung nearly 150 performances of 18 roles, most notably Gilda in Rigoletto, Violetta in La Traviata, the title role of Manon, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, Sophie in Werther, Nannetta in Falstaff, Miranda in The Enchanted Island, Amore in Orfeo ed Euridice, Lisette in La Rondine, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, and Woglinde in the Ring cycle.

During the 2023–2024 season, she sings Violetta in Tokyo and Naples, Marie in La Fille du Régiment at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Elvira in I Puritani in Dresden, Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare and Violetta at the Opéra de Paris, Mathilde in Guillaume Tell at the Vienna State Opera, Amina in La Sonnambula in Rome, and concerts with the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and on tour throughout Asia; at New Orleans Opera, La Scala, and the Hungarian State Opera; and in Paris, Barcelona, Graz, and Naples. In recent seasons, she has sung the title role of Lucie de Lammermoor in concert at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; Juliette in Roméo et Juliette at the Savonlinna Opera Festival; Donna Fiorilla in Il Turco in Italia in Madrid and at the Bavarian State Opera; the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala and the Vienna State Opera, in Zurich, and in concert at the Salzburg Festival; Ophélie in Hamlet at the Opéra de Paris; Amalia in I Masnadieri at the Bavarian State Opera; the title role of Alcina at Covent Garden; Elvira in Naples; Violetta in Verona, Rome, Barcelona, and at Covent Garden and the Bavarian State Opera; Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Vienna State Opera; Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi at La Scala; the title role of Theodora in concert with Il Pomo d’Oro; Gilda at Covent Garden; and Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Opéra de Paris.

She has also appeared at Dutch National Opera, the Glyndebourne Festival, Pesaro’s Rossini Opera Festival, San Francisco Opera, LA Opera, Opera Philadelphia, and Washington National Opera, as well as in concert with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, among others.