Missy Mazzoli's Lincoln in the Bardo opens at the Metropolitan Opera on Monday, 19 October 2026, with eight further performances through 14 November. The Met says Mazzoli is the first woman to have a world premiere at the house. As of 12 October, the production page listed tickets from $33.00, including a $10.00 fee. The production is suggested for ages 13 and over. The performances on 19 October and 11 November will be broadcast live on the SiriusXM app.

What the Met is staging

Mazzoli wrote the music and Royce Vavrek wrote the libretto, working from George Saunders's Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo. Lileana Blain-Cruz directs a new production, and both Mazzoli and Vavrek are making their Met debuts. The Met's announcement places her alongside other women composers with recent Met premieres, including Gabriela Lena Frank's El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego and Jeanine Tesori's Grounded.

The story is set in Abraham Lincoln's Washington in 1862. Most of it takes place in the bardo, a realm in a cemetery just outside Washington, D.C., and the only living character is Lincoln himself, who comes to visit his recently deceased son, Willie. Willie's arrival sets off the action, and the ghosts in the cemetery are transformed by it. The production page describes the bardo as a transitional plane populated by those who refuse to accept their fates, and the Met notes that the opera arrives in time for the nation's 250th birthday celebrations. Its description of Mazzoli quotes The New Yorker calling her a "once-in-a-generation magician of the orchestra".

Nine performances and who sings them

The run covers nine dates. Opening night is Monday, 19 October at 8 PM. After that come Saturday, 24 October at 1 PM; Monday, 26 October at 7:30 PM; Thursday, 29 October at 7:30 PM; Saturday, 31 October at 8 PM; Tuesday, 3 November at 7:30 PM; Saturday, 7 November at 1 PM; Wednesday, 11 November at 7:30 PM; and Saturday, 14 November at 8 PM.

Baritone Peter Mattei sings Lincoln. The rest of the named cast is soprano Christine Goerke as the Reverend, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo as Miss Elise Traynor, bass-baritone Ryan McKinny as Vollman, soprano Janai Brugger as Mrs. Hodge, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as Mrs. Baron, tenors Jonah Hoskins as Bevins and Joshua Blue as Thomas Havens, and baritone Craig Colclough as Mr. Baron. Everett Sobers sings Willie in his Met debut, and Michael Hurst takes that role on 31 October and 14 November. A trade report from OperaWire on 30 September lists the same cast and the same two substitutions.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met's music director, conducts every performance except 31 October and 14 November, which Steven Osgood leads.

Tickets, prices and the age guidance

As of 12 October, the production page listed tickets from $33.00, including a $10.00 fee. The live seat-map price is not a guaranteed minimum for the run. Each of the nine dates has its own seat selection, which means availability and price differ by performance and can move as seats sell. The page publishes no full price list, so a buyer cannot tell from it alone what the most expensive seat costs.

The Met suggests the production for ages 13 and over and notes that it contains adult themes and discussion.

Radio, online and the cinema season

Two broadcast routes are arranged for listeners who cannot get to Lincoln Center. The performances on 19 October and 11 November will be broadcast live on the SiriusXM app, and a recording of a fall performance will go out on The Robert K. Johnson Foundation-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network on 13 February. The Met says these broadcasts will also be streamed on its website, metopera.org.

The Met's published Live in HD list for 2026-27 does not include Lincoln in the Bardo. That cinema season opened on 19 September with an anniversary celebration hosted by Renée Fleming, and its live transmissions are Mozart's Così fan tutte on 3 October, Verdi's Macbeth on 17 October, Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila on 5 December, Puccini's La Fanciulla del West on 23 January 2027, Kevin Puts's Silent Night on 20 March 2027, Massenet's Manon on 3 April 2027, Verdi's Otello on 24 April 2027 and Wagner's Parsifal on 5 June 2027, with three encores across the season.

What the production puts on the stage

The Met says the staging uses puppetry, pyrotechnics and a live horse to bring the bardo to life. The creative team includes set designer Adam Rigg, costume designer Montana Levi Blanco, who is also designing the season-opening Macbeth, co-lighting designers Yi Zhao and Stacey Derosier, co-projection designers Hannah Wasileski and Hana S. Kim, creature-suit and puppet designer James Ortiz, dramaturg Paul Cremo, sound designer Kate Marvin, illusion and special effects designer Jeremy Chernick and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly. Several of them make their Met debuts with this production.

The opera was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and The Santa Fe Opera, and it is a co-production with the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. It is part of the Neubauer Family Foundation New Works Initiative.

A plain wooden puppet control bar and strings hang before dark curtains with a small contained spark in the distance.
Concept illustration of puppetry and pyrotechnics, two elements named in the Met's announcement. It is not a photograph or reconstruction of the production; no performers are shown.

The events that led up to the premiere

The Met ran four events in the month before the premiere, and all four have taken place. On 25 September, with a rain date of 26 September, Death of Classical co-presented an immersive preview at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. On 30 September, WNYC's Get Lit with All Of It book club met at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, and the Met said the in-person event reached capacity with a live stream available. On 5 October the Guggenheim's Works & Process series hosted a discussion moderated by Met general manager Peter Gelb, which also reached capacity. On 6 October the Met returned to LIVE from NYPL at the Celeste Bartos Forum.

What the Met has not announced

The production page lists nine performances to 14 November and says nothing about a return in a later season or a tour. The only recording listed by the Met is the radio broadcast of a fall performance on 13 February, and no commercial audio or video release is announced.