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 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 18 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 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, 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 more than 150 performances of 22 operas, as well as numerous galas and concerts with the Met Orchestra. During the 2023–2024 season, he takes the podium to conduct the Met premieres of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas, a new production of La Forza del Destino, a revival of Roméo et Juliette, Verdi’s Requiem, and concerts with the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

He 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. He also 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 13 Grammy Awards, winning most recently for conducting the Met’s recording of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones and collaborating with Renée Fleming on Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene.

Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen made her Met debut in 2019 as Lisa in The Queen of Spades. She has returned to sing Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos, Chrysothemis in Elektra, and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, as well as a solo recital alongside pianist James Baillieu in September 2023. She also participated in the company’s Met Stars Live in Concert streaming series, performing accompanied by Mr. Baillieu from Oslo’s Oscarshall palace. Later this season, she will star as Leonora in the Met’s new production of La Forza del Destino. Elsewhere, her season includes appearances as the title character of Jenůfa at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Giorgetta in Il Tabarro and Lisa at the Bavarian State Opera, and the title role of Salome at the Paris Opera. She also gives solo recitals in Santa Monica, Vienna, Madrid, London, and Valencia and appears in concert with tenor Freddie De Tommaso at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu and the Salzburg Easter Festival, and in concerts at the Norwegian National Opera and Madrid’s Teatro Real.

Notable past performances include the title role of Tosca in concert at the Bergen International Festival, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser at Staatsoper Berlin, Elisabetta di Valois in Don Carlo and Elisabeth at Covent Garden, Giorgetta in Barcelona, Sieglinde in Die Walküre and Elisabeth at the Bayreuth Festival, Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes and Sieglinde at the Vienna State Opera, and Leonore in Fidelio in Florence. She has also sung Sieglinde at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Leonore at Covent Garden and in concert in Montreal, Ellen Orford in concert at Bucharest’s George Enescu Festival, Elisabeth at the Bavarian State Opera and in Zurich, Lisa in Stuttgart, and Ariadne in Aix-en-Provence and at the Vienna State Opera and Glyndebourne Festival.

Her discography includes two solo recitals with orchestra, a recording of Grieg songs together with fellow Norwegian Leif Ove Andsnes, and the Met’s Grammy Award–nominated recording of A Concert for Ukraine, in which she sang Strauss’s Four Last Songs. She has also recorded Der Freischütz, Fidelio, and Sibelius’s Luonnotar. In 2015, she was the winner of both Operalia and the Queen Sonja Singing Competition, and among her numerous awards and accolades since are a 2022 Opera News Award, the 2021 Female Singer of the Year from the International Opera Awards, the 2020 Anders Jahres Art and Culture Prize, the 2018 Gramophone Young Artist of the Year Award, and the 2015 Kirsten Flagstad Award.