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 (as the ensemble is referred to when appearing in concert outside the opera house) 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 encompasses 22 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 have 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, Anna Netrebko, 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 nearly 150 performances of 17 operas, as well as numerous galas and concerts with The MET Orchestra. During the 2021–2022 season, he conducted the historic company premieres of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Matthew Aucoin’s Eurydice, and the French version of Verdi’s Don Carlos, as well as a revival of Tosca and concerts of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 and Verdi’s Requiem, the latter commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11. He also took the podium to lead the company’s A Concert for Ukraine, which was presented in support of relief efforts for those affected by Russia’s invasion.

Mr. Nézet-Séguin 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, and during the 2019–2020 season, he was a Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist. 

He 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 his first solo piano album, Introspection: Solo Piano Sessions, as well as albums with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. He has been nominated for six Grammy Awards, winning Best Orchestral Performance earlier this year for his recording with The Philadelphia Orchestra of Florence Price’s symphonies nos. 1 and 3. In 2011, he began a cycle of seven Mozart operas for the Festival Hall Baden-Baden, which Deutsche Grammophon recorded live.

Kansas-born mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato is one of opera’s most popular and versatile artists, having sung to great acclaim the world over. She has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards, winning for her solo albums Divo, Diva in 2012, Joyce and Tony in 2016, and Songplay in 2020. She was the 2007 recipient of the Metropolitan Opera’s Beverly Sills Artist Award and made her Met debut in 2005 as Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro. Since then, she has appeared in more than 100 Met performances of 13 roles, including Sesto in La Clemenza di Tito, Adalgisa in Norma, Elena in La Donna del Lago, Sycorax in The Enchanted Island, Isolier in Le Comte Ory, and the title roles of Agrippina, Cendrillon, La Cenerentola, and Maria Stuarda. To date, she has appeared in four Met premieres, seven new productions, and nine Live in HD cinema transmissions. She will return during the 2022–2023 season to appear as Virginia Woolf in the world-premiere staging of Kevin Puts’s The Hours, based on the acclaimed novel and film.

During the 2019–2020 season, Ms. DiDonato was a Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist. In recent seasons, she has appeared at the Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, La Scala, Opéra de Paris, Teatro Real de Madrid, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as well as at the Salzburg and Baden-Baden festivals. She regularly collaborates with the Baroque ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro, with which she recorded her 2016 album, In War & Peace; toured with the program My Favorite Things during the 2021–2022 season; and appeared at Carnegie Hall earlier this year in EDEN.