Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center is the largest opera house in the world by seat count (3,800) and a defining cultural institution of New York City. The current building, designed by Wallace K. Harrison, opened in 1966 as part of the Lincoln Center arts complex and features a vast auditorium with Marc Chagall's enormous murals flanking the lobby. The orchestra pit, raised stage machinery, and revolving platforms support the house's tradition of lavish traditional stagings. The Metropolitan Opera produces approximately 200 performances of about two dozen operas annually, with a repertoire weighted toward the great Italian and German operas of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The HD Live in Cinemas programme, broadcasting performances to over 2,200 cinemas worldwide, has transformed the house's global reach. Landmark productions have been directed by Franco Zeffirelli, Otto Schenk, Robert Lepage, and Ivo van Hove. The Met Orchestra and Chorus, under music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin since 2018, maintain the house's standard as one of the finest large-scale operatic ensembles.