The Metropolitan Opera
January 2026
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I PURITANI
For gorgeous melody, spellbinding coloratura, and virtuoso vocal fireworks, I Puritani has few equals. On New Year’s Eve, the curtain goes up on the first new Met production of Bellini’s final masterpiece in nearly 50 years—a striking staging by Charles Edwards, who makes his company directorial debut after many successes as a set designer. The Met has assembled a world-beating quartet of stars, conducted by Marco Armiliato, for the demanding principal roles. Soprano Lisette Oropesa and tenor Lawrence Brownlee are Elvira and Arturo, brought together by love and torn apart by the political rifts of the English Civil War, with baritone Artur Ruciński as Riccardo, betrothed to Elvira against her will, and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as Elvira’s sympathetic uncle, Giorgio.
PORGY AND BESS
Bass-baritone Alfred Walker and soprano Brittany Renee headline one of the defining works of American music theater. With its fusion of opera, jazz, and Broadway, the Gershwins’ enduring masterpiece features a number of tunes whose popularity has transcended the opera house, including the classics “Summertime” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” Hailed by The Washington Post as “a Porgy of its time that speaks to ours,” James Robinson’s vivid staging features electrifying choreography by Camille A. Brown, with an all-star ensemble portraying the community of Catfish Row.
MADAMA BUTTERFLY
Cultures collide in Puccini’s poignant tale of a loyal geisha and a callous American naval officer whose fleeting romance leaves only devastation behind. Two of today’s leading artists—Ailyn Pérez and Sonya Yoncheva—make their Met role debuts as Cio-Cio-San, one of opera’s ultimate soprano roles. Tenors SeokJong Baek, Adam Smith—in his Met debut—and Matthew Polenzani co-star as Pinkerton in Anthony Minghella’s production, an “inspired vision” (The New York Times) that has become a classic.
CARMEN
Bizet’s fiery masterpiece of seduction, obsession, and tragedy stars two of today’s leading mezzo-sopranos as Carmen, whose irresistible allure drives the soldier Don José to destruction. Isabel Leonard brings her smoldering take to the Met for the first time, opposite tenors Michael Fabiano and Matthew Polenzani, and Aigul Akhmetshina, praised by The New Yorker for the “fresh, ferocious energy” of her Carmen in the 2023–24 season, reprises her star-making portrayal, alongside tenor Michael Fabiano.
Carnegie Hall
Highlights
January 2026
The Cleveland Orchestra 01/20/2026 8 PM
Verdi’s Requiem is a 90-minute journey of operatic intensity, heart-stopping musical grandeur, and existential human drama. It’s not often that Verdi was criticized as “too operatic”—but when his Requiem first emerged, critics found its relentless, emotionally heightened energy to be of questionable taste for an ostensibly sacred work. These same traits make for a thrilling concert experience, highlighting a monumental cornerstone of the orchestral-choral repertoire today. Experience his legendary creation brought to life by The Cleveland Orchestra (“America’s finest,” according to The New York Times), Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, and four of the world’s foremost vocal soloists: Asmik Grigorian, Deniz Uzun, Joshua Guerrero, and Tareq Nazmi.
Performers
The Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, Music Director and Conductor
Asmik Grigorian, Soprano
Deniz Uzun, Mezzo-Soprano
Joshua Guerrero, Tenor
Tareq Nazmi, Bass
The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus
Lisa Wong, Director
Program
VERDI Requiem
Event Duration
The program will last approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.
The Cleveland Orchestra 01/21/2026 8 PM
Experience the breathtaking command of “America’s finest” ensemble (The New York Times) in a pair of symphonic masterworks. In Mozart’s final symphony—often regarded as his greatest—we hear the composer daring himself to even greater musical heights than previously thought possible. It’s a marvel of technical virtuosity, expressive creativity, and captivating directness that “shows off the wonderful qualities of this orchestra: the elegance, the refinement, the polished phrasings and articulations … it’s not for nothing that we always pick [Mozart] for auditions,” Franz Welser-Möst once said. The piece forms a stark contrast with Shostakovich’s terrifyingly powerful Symphony No. 11—a symphonic show of strength and dissent that The Cleveland Orchestra has performed to significant acclaim.
Performers
The Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, Music Director and Conductor
Program
MOZART Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter”
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 11, “The Year 1905”
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.
Prague Philharmonia 01/26/26 8 PM
The Prague Philharmonia, known for its interpretations of Classical and Romantic repertoire, performs Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture; Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 in G Major, featuring soloist Blake Pouliot; Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, with pianist Andrew von Oeyen; and Dvořák’s joyfully poetic Symphony No. 8 in G Major, all conducted by Emmanuel Villaume.
Performers
Prague Philharmonia
Emmanuel Villaume, Conductor
Andrew von Oeyen, Piano
Blake Pouliot, Violin
Program
BEETHOVEN Coriolan Overture
FELIX MENDELSSOHN Piano Concerto No. 1
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 3
DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 8
The New York Philharmonic
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HIGHLIGHTS JANUARY 2026
Yefim Bronfman plays Schumann 01/15/2026 to 01/18/26
Yefim Bronfman returns to the NY Phil with Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto, one of the most impassioned statements of the Romantic period. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2, which borrows from Ukrainian folk tunes, dances its way to a joyous finale. Chen Yi’s Landscape Impression, inspired by millennium-old Chinese poetry, opens this concert conducted by Xian Zhang.
Program
Chen Yi
Landscape Impression (New York Premiere)
R. Schumann
Piano Concerto
Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 2
Artists
Xian Zhang. Conductor
Yuja Wang & Thomas Adès 01/22/26 to 01/24/26 7:30 PM
Pianist Yuja Wang joins forces with conductor and composer Thomas Adès in a dramatic piano concerto by the Finnish luminary Einojuhani Rautavaara. Adès also leads Saariaho’s Oltra mar — an ethereal meditation on love, time, and death — as well as Ives’s Orchestral Set No. 2 and America (A Prophecy), Adès’s own foreboding view of our nation’s fate.
Program
Ives
Orchestral Set No. 2
Rautavaara
Piano Concerto No. 1
Saariaho
Oltra mar
Thomas Adès
America (A Prophecy)
Artists
Thomas Adès. Conductofr
Yuja Wang. Piano
Anna Dennis. Soprano
University of Michigan Chamber Choir
Eugene Rogers, director
EXIGENCE Vocal Ensemble
Eugene Rogers, director
