The Metropolitan Opera announced its 2026-27 season on February 19, 2026, per the company's press release: five new productions, twelve revivals of repertory staples, and a new production of Verdi's Macbeth to open the season, starring soprano Lise Davidsen. The company had teased the announcement on its social media channels in the days before the release.
What is new in the season?
The five new productions anchor a season the Met is framing around two broadcast anniversaries: the 20th anniversary of The Met: Live in HD, its cinema broadcast series, which is set for a special presentation on September 19, 2026, and the 60th anniversary of its telecasts. The staging of Macbeth marks the Met debut of its director, Louisa Proske, whose work has been seen in American regional opera.
How does the season reach audiences beyond the house?
Alongside the in-house calendar, the season continues the Met's dual distribution: live performances at Lincoln Center and same-day cinema transmissions through Live in HD, the series that since 2006 has carried productions to screens worldwide. Mozart's The Magic Flute returns as a holiday presentation beginning December 12, 2026, a family-oriented staging that has become a recurring December entry in recent seasons.
The announced calendar holds a long winter pause: no performances between January 31 and March 7, 2027, with Kevin Puts's Silent Night resuming the season on March 8, 2027.
What does the announcement mean for the 2026-27 listener?
Season announcements are the opera year's structural news, the moment casting, repertory, and scheduling become fixed facts rather than rumor, and the Met's February 19, 2026 release follows similar winter unveilings by other American companies, including LA Opera and Santa Fe Opera, which had already published their 2026 and 2026-27 plans with new productions and premieres of their own. Together the announcements sketch the American opera year ahead: more new staging than the pandemic years allowed, and a widening gap between houses that commission and houses that revive.
The announcement also gives the company a full year of lead time before the new Macbeth arrives, and gives listeners a first look at where the house is placing its bets: new stagings of repertory cornerstones, carried to a global audience by the broadcast apparatus the anniversaries celebrate.
For more context, read Reading the Season: what an orchestra announcement actually tells you.
For more context, read composition awards 2026.
For more context, read composer residency.