A Concert for New York

On May 16 at the Knockdown Center in Queens, the Met presented its first performance for a live, in-person audience since the pandemic closed the doors of the opera house in March 2020. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin took the podium, reuniting with members of the incomparable Met Orchestra and Chorus, as well as a quartet of leading vocal soloists—soprano Angel Blue, tenor Stephen Costello, baritone Justin Austin, and bass-baritone Eric Owens—for a diverse program ranging from the “Lacrimosa” movement of Mozart’s Requiem to the aria “Peculiar Grace” from Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, set to have its Met premiere in September. The socially distanced seats were filled by first responders from Mount Sinai’s hospital in Queens, as well as Met audience members chosen by a drawing.

In the video below, Maestro Nézet-Séguin, Owens, and members of the Met Orchestra and Chorus perform an excerpt from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.

This concert was underwritten with a generous contribution from Ekkehart Hassels-Weiler and Omar Romero Cazares.