YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN WILL LEAD THE MET OPERA, TWO YEARS EARLY

By MICHAEL COOPER

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Metropolitan Opera’s music director designate, rehearsing last year. He will become the company’s music director this fall, two years ahead of schedule. Credit Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

The Metropolitan Opera, which has been rocked this season by sexual misconduct accusations against its former music director, James Levine, is passing the baton to his successor. And fast.

The company announced on Thursday that Yannick Nézet-Séguin would become its new music director next season, two years ahead of schedule. The accelerated ascension will give much-needed musical stability to the Met, the nation’s largest performing arts organization, which suspended Mr. Levine, its longtime conductor, in December and opened an investigation into his behavior.

“The orchestra and the chorus, they need a leader,” Mr. Nézet-Séguin, 42, said in an interview, noting that a music director didn’t just conduct performances but was also responsible for a host of tasks, such as granting tenure to new musicians and molding the company’s overall sound.

Met officials said that they had been discussing moving up Mr. Nézet-Séguin’s start date long before Mr. Levine’s troubles surfaced in December, and that they had hoped to be able to announce it with the company’s next season. But they said that Mr. Levine’s suspension had given extra impetus to the plan. The sped-up succession was unveiled along with the 2018-19 season, which will feature the Met debut of the conductor Gustavo Dudamel; the planned return of the elusive tenor Jonas Kaufmann; a revival of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle; and four new productions.

Anna Netrebko will sing Aida and the title role in a new production of Cilea’s “Adriana Lecouvreur.” Credit Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

The season will open on Sept. 24 with Darko Tresnjak’s new staging of Saint-Saëns’s “Samson et Dalila,” starring Elina Garanca and Roberto Alagna. Michael Mayer will direct both Nico Muhly’s Hitchcockian “Marnie” and Verdi’s “La Traviata,” with Diana Damrau. Anna Netrebko will star in David McVicar’s new production of Cilea’s “Adriana Lecouvreur.”

Mr. Nézet-Séguin, who is also the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, will conduct three productions next season (“La Traviata” and revivals of Debussy’s “Pelléas et Mélisande” and Poulenc’s “Dialogues des Carmélites”) as well as two Met Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall; beginning in 2020, he will lead at least five operas a year. The Met said that in recognition of a new $15 million gift from the Neubauer Family Foundation, he would officially be the Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-season-dudamel-kaufmann-netrebko-yannick.html