Verdi’s Shakespearean comedy features a brilliant ensemble cast in Robert Carsen’s celebrated staging. Baritone Michael Volle sings his first Verdi role at the Met as the caddish knight Falstaff, gleefully tormented by a trio of clever women who deliver his comeuppance. Reuniting after their acclaimed performances in the production’s 2019 run are soprano Ailyn Pérez as Alice Ford, soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano as Meg Page, and mezzo-soprano Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Mistress Quickly. Soprano Hera Hyesang Park and tenor Bogdan Volkov are the young couple Nannetta and Fenton, and Daniele Rustioni conducts.

Six-time Grammy Award–winning composer Terence Blanchard brings his first opera to the Met after his Fire Shut Up in My Bones made history in the 2021–22 season. Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green is the young boxer Emile Griffith, who rises from obscurity to become a world champion, and bass-baritone Eric Owens portrays Griffith’s older self, haunted by the ghosts of his past. Soprano Latonia Moore is Emelda Griffith, the boxer’s estranged mother, and mezzo- soprano Stephanie Blythe is the bar owner Kathy Hagan. Yannick Nézet-Séguin returns to the podium to conduct Blanchard’s second Met premiere. Director James Robinson, whose productions of Fire Shut Up in My Bones and Porgy and Bess brought down the house, oversees the staging. Camille A. Brown, whose choreography electrified audiences in Fire and Porgy, also returns.

A stellar trio assembles to take on the lead roles of Strauss’s comedy, with soprano Lise Davidsen in her Met role debut as the Marschallin, opposite Mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey in her Met role debut as Octavian, and soprano Erin Morley as Sophie. Bass Günther Groissböck returns as Baron Ochs, and Markus Brück is Sophie’s father, Faninal. Maestro Simone Young takes the podium to oversee Robert Carsen’s fin-de-siècle staging.

Tony Award–winning director Ivo van Hove makes his Met debut with a new staging of Mozart’s tragicomedy Don Giovanni. The tale of deceit and damnation is set in an abstract architectural landscape that explores the dark corners of the story and its characters. Nathalie Stutzmann makes her Met debut conducting a star-studded cast led by baritone Peter Mattei as a magnetic Don Giovanni, alongside the Leporello of bass-baritone Adam Plachetka. Sopranos Federica Lombardi, Ana María Martínez, and Ying Fang are Giovanni’s conquests—Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Zerlina—and tenor Ben Bliss sings Don Ottavio.

Nathalie Stutzmann conducts her second Mozart work this season with a new production of Die Zauberflöte. In his Met-debut staging, Simon McBurney incorporates projections, sound effects, and acrobatics to match the spectacle and drama of Mozart’s fable. The brilliant cast includes soprano Erin Morley as Pamina, tenor Lawrence Brownlee as Tamino, baritone Thomas Oliemans in his Met debut as Papageno, soprano Kathryn Lewek as the Queen of the Night, and bass Stephen Milling as Sarastro.

On October 5, an ensemble of leading lights take the stage for Offenbach’s fantastical final work, headlined by tenor Benjamin Bernheim in the title role of the tormented poet. Hoffmann’s trio of lovers are sung by soprano Erin Morley as the mechanical doll Olympia, soprano Pretty Yende as the plagued diva Antonia, and mezzo-soprano Clémentine Margaine as the Venetian seductress Giulietta. Marco Armiliato conducts Bartlett Sher’s evocative production, which also features bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as the Four Villains and mezzo-soprano Vasilisa Berzhanskaya in an important company debut as Hoffmann’s friend Nicklausse. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.

Two-time Tony Award–winning composer Jeanine Tesori’s powerful new opera Grounded, commissioned by the Met and based on librettist George Brant’s acclaimed play, wrestles with the ethical quandaries and psychological toll of 21st-century warfare. Mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, one of opera’s most compelling young stars, portrays Jess, a hot-shot fighter pilot whose unplanned pregnancy takes her out of the cockpit and lands her in Las Vegas, operating a Reaper drone halfway around the world. As she struggles to adjust to this new way of doing battle, she fights to maintain her sanity, and her soul, as she is called to rain down death by remote control. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin oversees the Met premiere of Tesori’s kaleidoscopic score and a cast that also features tenor Ben Bliss as the Wyoming rancher who becomes Jess’s husband. Michael Mayer’s high-tech staging, using a vast array of LED screens, presents a variety of perspectives on the action, including the drone’s predatory view from high above. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.