Nezet-Seguin becomes Met Opera’s music director next season
NEW YORK Yannick Nezet-Seguin will become the Metropolitan Opera's music director next season, two years earlier than planned, providing a leader to an orchestra fighting drift and defections for more than a decade.
Nezet-Seguin’s appointment was announced in June 2016, two months after Parkinson’s disease caused the end of James Levine’s 40 year-run. The company announced Nezet-Seguin would start a five-year contract in 2020-21 after three seasons as music director designate.
Levine became music director emeritus but was suspended in December following multiple allegations of sexual harassment from the 1960s to ’80s.
The Met said Thursday that Nezet-Seguin had opened additional time in his schedule and will conduct 17 performances next season, agreeing to add a revival of Debussy’s “Pelleas et Melisande” to his previous commitment of a new production of Verdi’s “La Traviata” and a revival of Poulenc’s “Dialogues des Carmelites.” He will conduct three operas in 2019-20, then at least five each season starting in 2020-21.
“I think he realizes how important it is for the Met to have a music director who can also handle the important decision-making that only a musical director from a contractural point of view can do in terms of tenured positions in the orchestra,” Met General Manager Peter Gelb said.