Conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin Is Ushering In A New Act For The Metropolitan Opera

In The Fly Space Above The Stage At The Metropolitan Opera And Around And Behind It, Scenery Waits To Be Called Into Action.

- Lily Rothman

An intricate system of pulleys and lifts allows quick changes. Today’s afternoon rehearsal for Dialogues des Carmélites, for example, will be followed only hours later by a performance of Rigoletto. And in a place of many moving pieces, Yannick Nézet-Séguin fits right in—even though he’s standing at the head of the orchestra in a T-shirt and sneakers while the singers are costumed for 18th century France.

Nézet-Séguin, whose conducting of Francis Poulenc’s Carmélites will put a bow on his first season as music director at the New York City institution, is a man with many batons in the air. He fills parallel roles at the Philadelphia Orchestra and at the Orchestre Métropolitain, in his hometown of Montreal, and when he began this gig in 2018, it was two years ahead of schedule. The appointment was announced in 2016 for a 2020 start, but the timeline changed when his predecessor, James Levine, who’d held the job since 1976, was fired over accusations of sexual misconduct, which he denies but which were backed up by internal investigation. So he’s plenty busy, and that’s all in addition to his role in wider soul- searching about nothing less than the very future of classical music.

But on this rainy late-April day, he has more immediate work to focus on. Outside the auditorium, heavy-duty vacuums hum loudly across crimson carpets. Inside, the air fills with the notes that will be heard by audiences that come out to see Carmélites in person and at more than 2,200 movie theaters around the world that will, on May 11, host a live broadcast of the production.