I think for a long time, certainly in the Levine years, it seemed sometimes there was one new piece a decade,” said Aucoin, who is in the early stage of adapting Dostoyevsky’s “Demons” for the Met. “What’s striking is the catholicity of his taste. Nézet-Séguin has led five since becoming music director, a varied assortment of Poulenc’s “Dialogues des Carmélites,” Terence Blanchard’s “Champion” and “Fire Shut Up In My Bones,” Matthew Aucoin’s “Eurydice” and Kevin Puts’ “The Hours.” Nézet-Séguin is scheduled to conduct Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking,” Daniel Catán’s “Florencia en el Amazonas” next season and Jeanine Tesori’s “Grounded” to open 2024-25. “They were still the same group of wonderful musicians but they were artistically rudderless without having a music director.”Īmong a Met record 2,552 performances from 1971 to 2017, Levine conducted just two operas written after 1951: John Corigliano’s “The Ghosts of Versailles” (1991) and John Harbison’s “The Great Gatsby.” “With the exception of the Vienna Philharmonic, great orchestras need music directors to create unifying forces artistically,” Met general Peter Gelb said. For years, the Met had been synonymous with Levine, its chief force as music or artistic director from 1976 to 2016, known for bushy hair and emphasis on Verdi, Wagner and Mozart.

Music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2012-13 and of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain since 2000, Nézet-Séguin has teamed with Met general manager Peter Gelb to turn the 140-year-old Met to more contemporary music in an attempt to engage a wider audience.

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