Yannick Nézet-Séguin fast-tracked as Met Opera's new music director

Yannick Nézet-Séguin 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.

Nézet-Séguin'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 Nézet-Séguin 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.

Nézet-Séguin studied piano, conducting, composition and chamber music at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec in Montreal and choral conducting at the Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J. He became artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal's Orchestre Métropolitain in 2000 and also went on to work with leading orchestras in Philadephia and Rotterdam.

The Met said Thursday that Nézet-Séguin had opened additional time in his schedule and will conduct 17 performances next season, agreeing to add a revival of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande to his previous commitment of a new production of Verdi's La Traviata and a revival of Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites. 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 contractual point of view can do in terms of tenured positions in the orchestra," Met General Manager Peter Gelb said.

It will be very comforting and reassuring to the orchestra and the chorus to know his tenure is starting earlier than originally planned.- Peter Gelb, Met Opera general manager

"This obviously has not been the easiest time for the company with the news about maestro Levine, so it will be very comforting and reassuring to the orchestra and the chorus to know his tenure is starting earlier than originally planned."

Nézet-Séguin turns 43 next month and represents a generation change. He was not available for comment, Met spokesman Tim McKeough said.

Gelb said the Met's investigation of Levine is getting "very, very close to its conclusion." Levine, who turns 75 in June, is not scheduled to conduct next season.

While Levine helped raise the Met orchestra to among the world's best in the 1980s and '90s, his physical ability started to deteriorate in 2001, when he began to conduct from a chair. Tremors in his left arm and leg became noticeable in 2004, and his health worsened with shoulder and kidney surgery followed by three back operations. His frequent absences led to orchestra players feeling a lack of direction, and many left. An improved relationship with the orchestra and other unions could be significant heading into labour negotiations this summer, when the Met is expected to ask for permission to schedule regular Sunday performances for the first time.

"As fellow musicians excited by Yannick's vision for the future, it is our hope that the Met's inspired investment in his brilliance underscores its commitment to the musical artists and artistry that are the lifeblood of the Met Opera," Jessica Phillips, a clarinetist who chairs the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra Committee, said in a statement.

4 new productions scheduled

The season will have just four new productions, the fewest for the financially challenged Met since 2005-06. Gelb said the reduction was due to the need for stage time to rehearse a revival of Robert Lepage's controversial staging of Wagner's four-part Ring Cycle in the spring of 2019. Paris Opera music director Philippe Jordan leads a cast that stars Christine Goerke as Bruennhilde.

Darko Tresnjak's new staging of Saint-Saens' Samson et Dalila opens the season Sept. 24. Nico Muhly's Marnie gets its North American premiere Oct. 19 conducted by Robert Spano in his Met debut. Michael Mayer directs La Traviata, which opens Dec. 4, and the last new production is David McVicar's staging of Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, opening New Year's Eve with Gianandrea Noseda conducting a cast led by Anna Netrebko.

Acclaimed Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel makes his Met debut Dec. 14 in Verdi's Otello. Gelb said Lepage's Ringset with its giant planks starts a three-month remediation next week at a warehouse in Middletown, N.Y., to get "back in fighting shape." The set will be reprogrammed to make movements quieter.

The ticket price range remains unchanged at $25-$480 US. Paid percentage of box office realized is in the upper 60 per cent range this season, Gelb said, the same as last year. Gelb said the Met is considering collaborating with other institutions in New York to present a "chamber-sized opera in a more appropriate venue other than the Met."