The Met Orchestra/Nézet-Séguin review – white-hot music drama
Making their first visit to the UK in two decades, the New York orchestra – with Joyce DiDonato and Angel Blue – wrung every drop of emotion from Shakespearean music by Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Berlioz and Matthew Aucoin
April 2023
Champion: Emile Griffith’s story comes to life at the Met Opera
The Met has delivered a knockout blow with Champion, Terence Blanchard’s opera based on the life of former welterweight champion Emile Griffith
December 2022
The Woolf pack: Renée Fleming and Joyce DiDonato on turning The Hours into opera
The Pulitzer-prize-winning, Mrs Dalloway-influenced novel about three generations of women, has finally hit the stage. Its stars tell us how they pulled it off
July 2022
Home listening
Classical home listening: Ukrainian music from Nathan Milstein to the Proms
The Odesa-born violinist’s US Armed Forces recordings have aged well; the Met’s recent benefit concert is now an album; and the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall
April 2022
Peter Gelb of the New York Met: ‘We’re cancelling Putin, not Pushkin’
The most powerful person in opera has a Zelig-like propensity to always be present when politics have crossed over with classical music – the Russian invasion of Ukraine is no exception
March 2022
Russian soprano Netrebko condemns Ukraine war but Met says it’s not enough
Soprano Anna Netrebko withdraws from Met performances rather than renounce Putin
May 2021
This man made opera history. Why did I not know him?
Peter Brathwaite knew Bobby (Don’t Worry Be Happy) McFerrin but not his father Robert, the first Black man to sing at the Met. He celebrates a trailblazer and an inspiration
March 2021
James Levine obituary
Acclaimed conductor forced to quit the Metropolitan Opera in New York after a series of sex abuse allegations
January 2021
Elijah Moshinsky obituary
Opera director who came to prize directness and psychological insight over deconstruction and irony
July 2020
Lockdown culture
Lockdown listening: classical music and opera to stream at home
With concert halls and opera houses closed, organisations and musicians across the world are livestreaming concerts and opening up their digital archives
April 2020
Lockdown culture
The Metropolitan Opera’s At-Home Gala review – thrilling singing, live from the stars’ living-rooms
This technically remarkable event offered performances from more than 40 of the Met’s regular singers – as well as an irresistible peek into their homes
Lockdown culture
New York Metropolitan Opera hosts starry lockdown gala
Jonas Kaufmann, Anna Netrebko, Bryn Terfel and Renée Fleming join the company’s ambitious pan-continental living-room soiree
Lockdown culture
Opera and classical concerts to watch at home: our critics' picks – week four
Overwhelmed by content to stream? Our critics pick a daily classical highlight to see and hear for free. Today, music to see you through from 13 to 17 April
March 2020
Home listening
Classical music: let the Berlin Phil come to you
With concert halls and opera houses closed, we sample the stay-at-home alternatives from Budapest to Dar es Salaam
February 2020
Mirella Freni obituary
Outstanding soprano in the great Italian operatic tradition
November 2019
Home listening
Home listening: Bach, Beethoven and two great violinists
Tremendous new releases from Kati Debretzeni and Leonidas Kavakos, plus 50 years of the Met on BBC Four
October 2019
Jessye Norman, Grammy-winning opera star, dies at age 74
Family pays tribute to internationally celebrated medal of arts recipient
September 2019
Covent Garden is living in a dream world if it thinks Domingo should perform there still
Martin Kettle
The Royal Opera must surely follow New York’s Met and abandon bookings with star tenor Placido Domingo while he faces sexual harassment allegations
August 2019
Conductor James Levine settles lawsuit over sexual misconduct allegations
The former musical director of New York’s Metropolitan Opera had sued the company for defamation and breach of contract
