The Dancers of the Met, Bringing the Arts to a Pandemic World

by Lianne Coble-Dispensa

For the Dancers of the Metropolitan Opera, community is paramount. Dancing is an inherently intimate artform: dancers rarely dance alone, and friendships, colleagues, and artistic bonds of trust are formed on the stage, through in-person rehearsals, performances, and studio classes, the latter of which were often held at the Met four times a week during the season. 

All that was taken away when the Met canceled the remainder of the 2019-2020 season due to the COVID pandemic. With lockdown restrictions keeping these normally active artists at home, dancers like Maria Phegan and Liz Yilmaz soon started to feel the lack of opportunities to hone their skills and work with their colleagues. Almost immediately, Liz began scheduling Zoom classes, three times a week, to keep the Met dancer community sane and connected. This went on for six months, until the Zoom classes morphed into Zoom meetings to brainstorm how to continue performing during a time when congregating in public places, even in small groups, was taboo. From these meetings, Dancers of the Met was born. 

At least seven live performances were choreographed, staged, and produced by the Met dancers, as well as a number of performances made for live streaming and video (like this one). Their first live performance was via Arts on Site, in March of 2021. Produced by Mara Driscoll and Liz Yilmaz, the group presented five new works (the culmination of a week-long residency for the choreographers to create and rehearse), accompanied by a string quartet of Met Orchestra musicians, a Met pianist, and Seth Malkin and Anne Nonnemacher, both members of the Met Opera Chorus. Still in the thick of the pandemic restrictions, each of the four performances had an audience of only sixteen, all masked and socially distanced. 

Almost every month following, the dancers would present a performance in a different area of town. Two were at the High Line Nine. One was in Hoboken. One performance was outside, on 75th Street, as part of the city’s Open Culture/Open Air Opera initiative. Over 50 individuals either performed or volunteered their time to produce this event (including members of the Met’s stage management team), and other than getting haggled a bit by a few locals (mainly noise complaints), the performance was a resounding success. Maria saw that the audience members, both those who were ticketed observers and those passing by on 75th street, were moved by the presence of live art during the pandemic. “They needed music for healing, they needed dance, they needed movement.” 

Anne Nonnemacher, Met Chorus Soprano.

Met Chorus soprano Anne Nonnemacher danced all through childhood, and still takes lessons to this day, so the experience of collaborating with the Dancers of the Met was a joyful and fulfilling experience. Michelle Vargo’s choreography to Handel’s beautiful aria Lascia Ch’io Pianga (sung by Anne, of course) was performed at multiple venues, and Anne was pleased to work not just with the dancers but also the Met Orchestra musicians who played in the string quartet. “[The chorus] doesn’t often get the chance to work with the orchestra musicians during the season, so the opportunity to work with them and get to know them was really lovely.” She was also offered a moment of personal creativity, fashioning a solo, a-cappella fragment from the Flower Maidens scene in Wagner’s Parsifal, which preceded another work choreographed by Vargo (with costumes designed by another Met dancer, Sam Meredith). Jacoby Pruitt’s choreography to Marietta’s Tanzlied (from Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt) included Anne, not just as a singer, but as a focal point in the action, which made good use of her movement background.

Seth Malkin, Met Chorus Bass.

For Met chorus bass Seth Malkin, performing with the Dancers of the Met and the orchestra musicians of the Met was an opportunity to “get together and collaborate, at a time when doing so felt like my only tether to my artist-self.” Seth, along with Met chorus soprano Anne Nonnemacher, performed art songs at the very first Arts on Site concert in March of 2021, and Seth recently offered up a set of art songs, with beautiful interpretive dance by Antuan Byers, at the High Line Nine. But it was May 16, 2021 that sticks out in his mind the most. The Dancers had scheduled their Open Air Opera event on 75th street that morning, the same day as the Met’s special performance at the Knockdown Center in Queens. He was scheduled to be one of the first artists to perform that day, and was able to sing an aria from Beethoven’s Fidelio, as well as connect with the assembled onlookers by answering questions about what it’s like to sing at the Met. Afterwards, he rushed to Queens to rehearse and perform in the Met’s special event. “Two gigs in one day went a long way to making me feel like I was exiting the very long, very dark tunnel I had been traveling, since the Met sent us home the year before.”

Megan Krauszer, rehearsing a piece with Lincoln Center instrumentalists in October 2021.

Audience sizes varied, as one might imagine due to the strict COVID protocols that were in place during the height of the pandemic. Curator/director Maria Phegan gathered 11 artists together for their first livestream event presented by Arts ON AIR, with three pieces by choreographer Michelle Vargo, along with Met Orchestra Musicians and additional collaborators, in an intimate rooftop setting as a love letter to NYC. This performance had room for 10 paid, ticketed observers. However, their May 2021 outdoor concert, which was part of Open Culture/Open Air Opera, was not only a ticketed event, but also drew in crowds of onlookers and passers-by who happened to walk down 75th Street during their performance. Maria did note that the true reach of their performances couldn’t be exactly quantified, as their use of live streaming via Instagram meant that they were able to reach an expanded audience of non-locals. 

Not only were the Dancers of the Met creating original choreography and performing these works for grateful audiences: they were also producers, grant writers (Maria Phegan is something of an expert at this, at this point in the game), web developers (Liz Yilmaz manages the Dancers website), and videographers (Cesar Abreu handled the video work for performances in May and August). Organizations donated tents and flooring. But thanks to a combination of generous donations, fundraising, proceeds from tickets and merchandise sales, and grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the Dancers of the Met that participated in these concerts received stipends for their work, during a time where jobs in the performing arts industry were sparse, at best. And the content they created in 2020 led to a fiscal sponsorship by Fractured Atlas, which allows the Dancers of the Met to function as a 501(c)(3) and accept donations for future performances and community engagement. 

The talented performers of Arts On Air.

All in all, these performances were immensely beneficial to both the dancers and their audiences. “The Met, the Met community got closer during this process,” said Liz Yilmaz of the experience. Maria agreed that all this, initially, “was for the dance community, but it ended up that people need this, the world needs this. They needed it as much as we needed it.” 

In the coming months, the Met dancers have a lot of work ahead of them. At the Met, they’ll be rehearsing and performing The Magic Flute, Turandot, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Porgy and Bess, and Cinderella. But there are so many more behind-the-scenes projects they have to look forward to. With Maria, Liz, Natalian, and Michelle Vargo at the helm, the Dancers of the Met will be brainstorming fundraising ideas, holiday events, and focusing on 2022 festivals and summer programs, all the while laying the groundwork for a sustainable, supportive, abundantly artistic future. 

Dancers of the Met, photographed outside Lincoln Center during the height of the pandemic. (Photo Credit: Jon Taylor)

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Check out the Dancers of the Met if you’d like to learn more about these incredible artists. Dancers of the Met is a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a registered 501(c)(3) charity. All monetary donations are tax deductible. 

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When Words Fail, Music Speaks

The career of a Metropolitan Opera chorister is chock-full of memorable events. “Top Ten” performances, defined by gorgeous music, world-class soloists, or exciting productions are common, but none of them could prepare us for the experience of performing the Verdi Requiem on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. The weight and gravity of the evening alone was enough to create an emotional musical experience to remember. But there was even more significance this year, as this special performance of the Verdi Requiem was the first performance on the Met stage since March 11th, 2020 (the Met would shut its doors the next day due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Naturally, many of the choristers had much to say about the experience.

The Metropolitan Opera Chorus, Orchestra, and soloists, led by Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Photo: Met Opera/Richard Termine.

Soprano Danielle Walker was overcome by the gravity of the experience. “Singing the Verdi Requiem with the Met Opera on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 was truly an honor. From the moment we stepped into a standing ovation to the final note sung, I shed so many tears.” Like so many of her colleagues, she wrestled with “financial, mental, physical, and emotional struggles” and lost friends and loved ones to COVID, and performing the Requiem was cathartic, and brought to her a sense of renewal after a year and a half of artistic stagnation. “I began to feel like a person again, part of a bigger picture.” 

Daniel Clark Smith (right) and his husband, pianist Michael Caldwell, on a delightful hike.

Veteran chorister and Chorus Committee member Daniel Clark Smith also realized, like Danielle, that he had experienced a version of an identity crisis during the Met’s closure. “I realized that my identity is so closely aligned with my line of work that I felt a real loss of self.” Daniel had performed the piece multiple times with the Met Chorus and Orchestra, but this particular iteration “brought a new emotional dimension to the piece for me, after losing so much to the Met’s closure for the last year and a half. Singing the Verdi Requiem was absolutely exhilarating, both musically and emotionally. Commemorating the anniversary of 9/11 led me to recall the last 20 years, reflecting on the city's and the nation's losses, as well as the personal losses I've suffered in that time.” Many choristers, Daniel included, were truly inspired by the leadership and artistic direction of the Met’s Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who conducted both the Mahler and the Verdi, and brought everyone together for “a truly moving experience.” As the chorus’s Safety Delegate, Daniel was particularly happy with the Met’s COVID safety precautions, which brought him comfort as he sang indoors without a mask for the first time during the pandemic. It freed him to fully invest himself in his musical performance. The whole experience, he thinks, will serve as a highlight of his Met career.

Mezzo-soprano Rosalie Sullivan was so moved by the experience that it was difficult to put her feelings into words, even months after the performances. “How can there be words adequate for such a moment?” she asks, recognizing the weighty confluence of events: “the 20-year anniversary of 9/11, 18 months to the day since our last performance together onstage at The Met, and our first unmasked indoor performance after a year and a half of COVID. On a good day, the Verdi Requiem has the power to shake me to my bones, but to perform it under these circumstances was overwhelming. So many layers of loss and grief and remembrance.”

“At the same time,” she said, “it was a profound gift to be a part of that performance and to finally offer ourselves up again in and through music. I don't expect I will ever have another such experience in my lifetime. The only word I can find for it is ‘sacred.’”

Gloria Watson (center) with her husband, Met carpenter Dana Watson and her son, Taylor.

Mezzo-soprano Gloria Watson was one of eight Met choristers who retired during the pandemic. It was heartbreaking for her to leave so abruptly, without being able to say a proper goodbye to her friends and colleagues after 27 years in the Met Chorus, but she made the difficult decision to end her career at the Met in August of 2020. Incredibly, she got a call from Chorus Administrator Dan Hoy in August of 2021 with an offer to sing one more time, as an extra-chorister, in the Met’s September performances of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony and Verdi’s Requiem. She was overjoyed to be able to return to “the house” to sing in these two incredible works of musical art, particularly since she had never performed the Mahler. But it was the Verdi Requiem that offered her the greatest emotional experience. Being in the city during the 9/11 attacks meant struggling with anxiety in the aftermath, and a pronounced fear of public transportation. “To be able to perform the Requiem on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 was cathartic. It was the most emotion I’ve ever felt [during a performance].” 

Gloria started her career in 1994 “with Pavarotti and Teresa Stratas” and ended it with the Verdi Requiem, on a historic day for both the Met and for New York City. For Gloria, for every performer on the stage, and for the sold-out audience on its feet before a note was sung, it was a colossal gift. 

“When you think about what we do for a living, how we feed our souls…to be able to say goodbye this way is one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever done.” 

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The Met Chorus Committee Tackles CBAs and College

by Lianne Coble-Dispensa, with Mary Hughes

In a contract negotiation year, the members of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus Committee are usually up to their necks in proposal brainstorming, AGMA shop meetings, and hours of getting up-close-and-personal with our CBAs (collective bargaining agreement) and MOAs (memorandum of agreement). However, this is no ordinary negotiation year, as the artists of the Met have been furloughed since March 12th, 2020 due to the global pandemic. So in the midst of long-term unemployment, some committee members have been searching for jobs, while others have gone back to school for free, thanks to the Union Plus program!

For those that might be unaware of this benefit, AGMA members have access to the incredible Union Plus Free College program. This program partners with Eastern Gateway Community College in Steubenville, OH to offer ten 2-year associate degree programs and two certificate programs, free of charge, to union members looking to expand their skill set or broaden their educational background. Additionally, Union Plus offers 4-year degree programs, also entirely online, available through Central State University in Wilberforce, OH. If you’re curious about this opportunity, check out www.unionplus.org. Then, read on to hear about the members of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus Committee who will be juggling term papers and homework assignments while they work with other Met AGMA artists to negotiate a fair, equitable contract and a safe working environment for all. 

Note: This article was originally featured in the Winter 2021 AGMAzine, the official newsletter of the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA). You may read the whole newsletter here.

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Lianne Coble-Dispensa, soprano. Photo: Joshua South

Lianne Coble-Dispensa, soprano

A full-time member of the Met Chorus for 6 years

Chorus Committee member; Writer/Editor-in-Chief for the Met Artists newsletter and MetChorusArtists.com.

I still technically have one of the best jobs in the classical vocal industry. It’s the one full-time opera position with what used to be the greatest job security: I’m a member of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus. However, when the Met closed its doors due to the pandemic, I had a “come to Jesus” moment concerning what the next few years could look like. The future of the performing arts industry is murky at best, with a slow roll-out of the vaccine coupled with a new, more virulent strain of the virus potentially delaying our hoped-for decline in new cases. I looked at my short-term options and thought that the best choice during an extended period of unemployment was to make myself more employable elsewhere, should a career change become necessary.

A few Met Chorus colleagues had already started associate degrees through the Union Plus program, which I knew existed, but had never seriously considered using. (After all, I already had a job!) I’d always been interested in law and at different points in my career, toyed with the idea of going to law school. Considering law school requires 3 years of full-time commitment (or 4 years part-time) and a whole lot of money, I took the next-best path and enrolled in an associate degree program through Union Plus to become a paralegal. I’m in the middle of my second semester and have thoroughly enjoyed this introduction to the world of legal writing and practice. 

The Union Plus program is an incredible opportunity to learn new things, expand one’s skill set, and forge a new career path, all for free, and all entirely online. It’s a great choice for unemployed members of the performing arts industry stuck at home with far too much time on their hands, but it’s also an incredible resource for anyone in the greater AFL-CIO union family who is looking to continue their education and take charge of their future. 

(Update: Since publication of this article, Lianne has changed her major to an AAB in Business Management with a Data Science focus.

Mary Kristine Hughes, mezzo-soprano.

Mary Hughes, mezzo-soprano

A full-time member of the Met Chorus for 15 years

Chorus Committee member; Women’s chorus delegate

Life during this pandemic has been about as unpredictable and uncertain as it could be for my husband and I and our 3 young children. Our world changed on a dime and all of the sudden I was furloughed and the whole family contracted COVID-19.

Somewhere along the way I started to apply for jobs, thinking that my delegate work with the Met Chorus Negotiating Committee could open some doors in customer service or administrative work. I joined the millions of newly-unemployed people who were applying to the same jobs in industries that I have not been a part of since accepting a full-time position at the Met 15 years ago. It was demoralizing, but I didn’t want to give up. I was homeschooling 3 kids, so why not have something that I could do while they were doing their version of school?

I’d always been interested in working as a paralegal, but life and music took me elsewhere. I’d known about the free college benefits through AGMA and Union Plus but had not given the program much thought until I started talking about it more with colleagues. When I looked again in May 2020, I realized that for free, I could become a certified paralegal. This is an industry that is projected to grow in the years ahead and encompasses my interests of working in Immigration Law. I’m so glad that I took the plunge! I have always wondered what else I could do to supplement my income, and I have chosen a field which is challenging and interesting. 

There’s nothing as exciting as singing at the Met, but the opportunity to broaden my skills was too good to pass up, and the fact that it’s a free benefit for all of us is golden.

Karen Dixon, soprano.

Karen Dixon, soprano

A full-time member of the Met Chorus for 20 years

Chorus Committee member; dancer delegate

 The pandemic has shown me the tremendous vulnerability of the performing arts industry. I learned about the free college benefit through AGMA and Union Plus and decided now would be a good time to take advantage of it.

I chose to study Professional Office Management for several reasons. I have done office work for my husband's retail store for many years but have not had any "training" to do it. This degree will enhance the real-life experience I already have to benefit our store and offer more skills if I am faced with looking for other work opportunities.

The opportunities are endless in the field of Office Management, as every form of work needs office personnel to support and maintain operations. I am deeply grateful that my union offers this incredible opportunity for its members to grow and enhance skills to benefit them and their families, whether or not there are difficult times like these.

(Editor’s Note: The retail store to which Karen referred is The Shoe Tree, located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan near the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. If you need shoes for your kiddos or for yourself, The Shoe Tree has a fantastic selection and a friendly Met face at the register!)

Ned Hanlon, bass.

Ned Hanlon, bass

A full-time member of the Met Chorus for 7 years

Chorus Committee chair; Met AGMA Committee chair

Last March the performing arts world exploded, and we are still just barely beginning to pick up the pieces. Artists around the country were confronted with the reality that their industry was shut down and would be for the foreseeable future. It was in this context that I started looking around for things to do while there was no way for me to work. Improving and making myself more well-rounded through education seemed a natural fit.  

Happily, I had heard about the Union Plus Free College Benefit and I jumped at the chance. Given my work with our AGMA negotiating committee at the Met, I thought that the Management Degree with a Labor Focus was a natural fit that could put me in a place to be more of an asset to my colleagues when we did finally return to work.

Now I’m 29 credits in and very glad I pursued the degree. I’m taking Intro to Management so I’ll know how the bad guys think (Just kidding! Well, kind of.) and Contract Administration, which will serve me as a singer and as a union representative.  The degree has helped give me purpose and direction during this rudderless and uncertain time. I am greatly appreciative of the Free College Benefit for helping me to take lemons and turn them into, if not lemonade, then at least better-tasting organic lemons!

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Note: The authors would like to take this opportunity to publicly congratulate Ned for winning an award sponsored by the Union Plus Holiday Giveback Campaign. 100 exemplary union leaders, nominated by friends and union colleagues, were chosen out of a pool of over 1,000 worthy applicants. If you see Ned during a pandemic Zoom meeting, be sure to congratulate him on a job well done!

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Creating Community in Isolation

by Daniel Clark Smith

It takes a certain personality type to choose a lifelong career as a chorister. We crave the creation of music and art on a grand scale, art that can’t be achieved by oneself. Choristers depend upon one another, and the pandemic has taken both our livelihood and our sense of community.

So it seemed natural for us to reach out to our communities in song and companionship. Whether presenting outdoor recitals or virtual discussions with students or senior citizens, our members have sought to give back to the community. What we didn’t expect was that in doing so, it fed our hunger for belonging in the world.

Concerts for Good

This summer, Chorus soprano Maria D’Amato and her husband Dimitrie Lazich, a member of the Extra Chorus, invited their neighbors to an outdoor recital of opera and musical theater favorites. They shared their gorgeous voices with a grateful audience while raising money for the Met Chorus Artists fundraising campaign. A double effort in giving—both to their immediate community and to their artistic one.

Chorus baritone Yohan Yi has developed a relationship with EnoB, a nonprofit organization devoted to providing free concerts for hospitalized, disabled, and socio-economically-challenged populations. Recently he sang Aaron Copland’s ‘At the River’ with SunEun Baek at the piano, as part of one of EnoB's digital outreach concerts.

Outreach for Older Populations

A screen shot of Sal Rosselli’s delightful conversation with the Lohmans.

A number of Met choristers have been involved with an outreach program through the RoseWood Village, a retirement and assisted-living facility in Charlottesville, VA. Residents of RoseWood have been treated to one-on-one virtual calls with choristers, offering conversation and music, and providing both residents and choristers alike some fellowship and cheer. Maria D’Amato happily participated in this initiative, along with fellow choristers Seth Malkin, Suzanne Falletti, Elizabeth Brooks, Marc Persing, Salvatore (“Sal”) Rosselli, and Angela DeVerger.

Sal Rosselli had what he describes as a wonderful conversation with the Lohmans, an impressive couple who had just celebrated their 70th anniversary (Maury is 100 years old, and Laura is 93). They reminisced about the neighborhood around Columbia University (where the Lohmans met, and where Sal had lived in his early days in NYC). Speaking with the Lohmans gave Sal “an opportunity to know I had something to give, which I was very grateful for”. As young professionals in New York, the Lohmans regularly attended Saturday matinees at the Met, so there was much discussion of singers of the era, such as Roberta Peters and Robert Merrill. Sal also spoke with the Brewers, who described falling in love in the church choir — Mr. Brewer was the organist, and his wife-to-be Pauline was in the choir. Sal described his discussions as a privilege “to have this brief window into these wonderful couples’ lives!”

Seth Malkin, a bass in the chorus, said his visit with a resident at RoseWood was “rather demonstrative to me of the isolation and discomfort that can accompany aging in this country.” He decided to simply sing country tunes, accompanying himself on the guitar. The woman “was initially very reserved,” he said, “and didn’t care to talk. She melted toward me a bit, as I sang, and I think she was pleased.”

Student Teaching

Seth Malkin has devoted much of his time to speaking to students, as remote learning has opened many avenues for us to engage with schools around the country. “I’ve met with voice students at The Cleveland Institute of Music, and at Boston University to talk about choral careers in music, as well as my Broadway experience. That was enormous fun. The students are terrifically motivated, and interesting, and who doesn’t like to talk about themselves for an hour?”

Chorus colleagues Meredith Woodend and Marc Persing collaborated on a joint presentation for the Westminster Choir College’s Symphonic Choir, speaking about their individual paths to the Met and what a day in the life of a chorister looked like. Meredith also spoke with the Orlando Gay Chorus, who had questions about the career of a chorister and were curious to hear about what happens “behind the scenes”. The Met Opera Chorus job is unique in this country, so musicians of all levels were curious to know how it all works.

Ultimately, these discussions were affirming for Meredith. “To know that [people] support us and can’t wait for us to return to the stage was incredibly uplifting.”

Chorus couple Scott Dispensa and Lianne Coble-Dispensa did two remote outreach sessions with schools: Newton High School in Newton, KS and the Bacon Academy in Colchester, CT. Newton’s session was with a group of choir members, many of whom are interested in pursuing music in college, and was entirely online as the school had recently gone to remote instruction due to a local spike in COVID cases. The Bacon Academy group was comprised of a chamber choir (both in person and remote, since the school follows the hybrid format). The students knew that being in the Met Chorus was a grueling job that involved hours of singing per day, so the question of how to manage vocal fatigue came up with both groups. One thoughtful student from the Bacon Academy asked them how their lives and careers had been changed by the pandemic, which Lianne said “showed way more awareness of how the quarantines are affecting the arts than I would have expected.”

“Both groups of kids had fantastic questions and were really engaged, and I'm hoping we offered a peek into one of the many ways a person can make a living in the performing arts.”

Nathan Carlisle, teaching a voice lesson online via Culture for One.

Hometown Heroes

Chorus tenor Nathan Carlisle has deep ties to Houston, MS. His grandparents were pillars of the community there. But the town has long been without a theater, so when news came of a new theater breaking ground on the square, he knew he had to help. In September, he held a fundraiser in the form of an outdoor program called “From the Military to the Met,” landing on the local news in the process. His fundraising efforts continued with a sold-out concert on Dec 5th, a Christmas show with all proceeds going to the community theater. “It’s been incredible to be down in Chickasaw County, Mississippi helping raise money for a worthy cause.”

Nathan is no stranger to service, demonstrating his passion for volunteerism with Culture for One, an organization devoted to bringing the arts to children in the foster care system. Nathan has taught voice lessons to kids in the NYC community for years, and he has continued his work with them even after the Met closed and he moved back to Mississippi. His commitment to music education also led him to give a presentation to over 200 students at the local middle and high schools in Houston. “It was such a pleasure to share the world of opera with so many who had never even heard of it.”

Suzanne Falletti (top left) with one of her Selfhelp classes.

Help Others, Help Your Self

Several members of the Orchestra and Chorus have volunteered for hour-long virtual sessions with a group called Selfhelp Community Services. Founded in 1936, Selfhelp has been the largest comprehensive program serving Holocaust survivors in the country. They provide services in home care, real estate and housing, as well as the community-based services for which our volunteers have worked. Suzanne Falletti, a soprano in the Chorus, has conducted two sessions with groups through Selfhelp. She talked about her pathway to the Met, memorable productions and costumes, and shared photos and even video clips of her singing.

“There was a wide range of ages and participation during these two sessions, but mostly I was so touched that after the first one they requested a second class,” Suzanne said. Conversations ranged from Suzanne’s career at the Met, to operatic training, to vocal training, to favorite composers and opera singers of the past. “The residents had a great appreciation for the arts, and for opera in particular,” Suzanne said. “Many of them had been [Met Opera] subscription holders in their younger days and clearly loved classical music.”

All in all, Suzanne felt fulfilled by her outreach with both RoseWood and SelfHelp. “All of the in-person self-help centers are closed, so this is their only outlet. I was honored to have been asked, and honestly, it helped with my feeling of isolation as well.”

Advising students about musical careers and reminiscing about performances can be fun and educational, but the true purpose of art is to entertain and comfort. Music transports the listener to another time and place, even for just a moment. While our usual method of singing opera is closed to us, as individuals we’ve craved these musical moments. They are as powerful to us as artists as we hope they are for our audiences.

Seth Malkin was deeply moved by his outreach with RoseWood, but his most powerful experience was singing for “a magnificent Canadian lady” as she passed away at her home on Prince Edward Island. She had approached him about the possibility of singing at her deathbed (albeit remotely) by email, before her cancer was too advanced for her to properly communicate. Seth said the transportive experience “gave me a perspective with which I walk through the challenges of this pandemic, daily.”

While few of us have experienced something as meaningful as Seth’s intimate moment with mortality, all of these volunteer experiences provide performers an outlet for our musical expression. And while the pandemic prevents us from doing our jobs, our primary means of artistic worth in the world, we are thankful to be able to contribute to our community in these ways. Paradoxically, time away from the opera can connect us to the greater purpose of art.

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Met Artists Newsletter Editorial: Why Another Fundraiser?

by Lianne Coble-Dispensa

When the Metropolitan Opera closed its doors on March 12, 2020, the plan was to come back in two weeks after the smoke had cleared, so to speak. The announcement of the closure came abruptly, but not entirely unexpectedly, in the middle of a musical rehearsal of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. Most choristers left things behind at their dressing room desks, certain they’d be back after a brief hiatus.

It’s safe to say that no one could have imagined the scope and destructive power the COVID-19 pandemic would have on the performing arts industry.

Give the gift of hope to your favorite Met AGMA artists this season. (Illustration by Chelsey Hill.)

Met Chorus Artists, Inc., the non-profit organization run by members of the chorus, had been in existence for four years, and was initially created to help facilitate the chorus’s desire to be more involved in the community through opera education and outreach. However, after the Met canceled the remainder of it’s 2019-2020 season, it quickly became apparent that our organization needed to step up and fill another important role: that of a fundraiser and grant-provider to hundreds of out-of-work and financially struggling Met AGMA artists. Our successful first fundraiser, which you can read all about here, raised over $500,000 from hundreds of individual donors, as well as generous assistance from Met Opera board member Graham Berwind and Met supporter Bob Doorenbos (our “angel donors”) and a $250,000 donation from the Rolex Foundation. This money went directly to the artists who applied for our Emergency Grant, and as a result, over 300 artists received funds that helped them pay their rent (or mortgage), bills, and put food on the table for their families.

We hoped that one fundraiser was all that would be necessary to assist our fellow artists and colleagues through a dark time in their lives.

But instead of improving, things got much worse.

Due to skyrocketing levels of COVID cases and the lack of a vaccine, the Metropolitan Opera canceled the entirety of its 2020-2021 season, assuring that Met artists would be out of work for a year and a half (providing our preseason rehearsals start on time in August of 2021). Government assistance has been slim-to-nonexistent, and Unemployment Insurance will run out for many of us in April of 2021, with some of our colleagues possibly losing their PUA payments (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance) by the end of the year. Over 30% of the chorus have given up their apartments and homes and moved away from New York City because they can’t afford to live in an area with such a high cost-of-living without a job, to say nothing of our other Met AGMA family members who have left the NYC metro area and have scattered to all corners of the country to live with friends and family members and wait out the closure, watching their bank accounts dwindle.

We, the board of Met Chorus Artists, Inc., knew we had no choice but to raise money for our colleagues a second time. We decided to call our second campaign the Face The Music Fundraising Campaign, and there are many reasons we chose to name it this way.

Audiences have to Face the Music that they won’t be able to enjoy their favorite Metropolitan Opera performances until September of 2021 (at least, that’s the hope).

Metropolitan Opera Artists have to Face the Music that the company they love is not going to give them the support and respect they need and deserve.

Artists have to Face the Music that many government programs that are helping them stay afloat (student loan deferments, eviction moratoriums, rent assistance, mortgage forbearance programs, etc.) are set to expire at the end of the year.

Artists have to Face the Music that a vaccine roll-out will take time, and that it will be a long time before we can comfortably perform indoors again.

And we all have to Face the Music that we will not get through this pandemic without helping each other.

There was no small amount of concern that a second fundraising campaign would get lost in the shuffle of so many worthy organizations that need financial support, particularly at the end of the year. Even our friends, the Met Orchestra Musicians, have started a fundraiser to help full-time orchestra members, associate musicians, and music staff members make ends meet during the closure, and the Metropolitan Opera itself has an ongoing campaign.

But it is our hope that our beloved audience members and Met Opera supporters can see the difference they can make to the individual Met AGMA artists that have lost their homes, who have lost their livelihoods, and who continue to struggle as COVID cases rise and restrictions on indoor congregations continue to restrict our ability to perform, to do what we were trained to do, and what we love to do.

We, the artists of the Metropolitan Opera, aren’t just labor: We Are The Met. We are what brings the magic of opera to life, and until we can safely do so, we need your help.

This is why we launched our Face the Music Fundraising Campaign, and we hope you’ll join us.

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Ned Hanlon: Why Solidarity Is Important

Met Chorus Committee Chair Ned Hanlon was interviewed this summer by Timothy Bostwick of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) for their 'Voices of Covid-19' series. Their series "seeks to capture the lived experiences of the vocal performing arts during the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020." Ned's interview gives us a clear and detailed picture of what it's like to be an out-of-work Met chorister during the pandemic, and what the future holds for performing artists.

Many thanks to Timothy Bostwick and NATS for taking on this massive project, and for allowing us to reissue Ned’s article. Please visit the NATS website for Ned’s article (which also includes the audio files from his interview) and browse the stories of other opera industry professionals who have been adversely affected by the pandemic.

Note: This interview was conducted on August 3, 2020.

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Timothy Bostwick: I think I can answer this for you, but what is the best thing that has happened to you in the last week?

Ned Hanlon: This is the end of the story a bit, but we finished a big fundraiser that the chorus has been spearheading for all the AGMA (American Guild of Musical Artists)artists that lost contracts at the Met. We just finished that up on Friday. It was a massive success, we broke $500,000 on the final day. We also had an anonymous donor that gave us a $25,000 matching grant for the final 10 days. And we broke that in the final three hours of the campaign.
      So we closed up this huge effort that we’ve been working on and now we’re in the process of going through the applications; making sure the people who applied are eligible. I think we’re going to end up getting a substantial amount of money to 300-plus artists, who are the Met artists who need it the most right now. So that has been what we’ve been focusing on the most of this past week.

TB: This is a huge project. As you noted, it is over half a million dollars. For me what matters even more, aside from the gifts from Rolex or the Metropolitan Opera Board, were the number of artists that were giving. Seeing names like Erin Morley and Patrick Carfizzi supporting [other] artists was what we all need at this point.

NH: Absolutely true. I would add to that because Erin and Patrick are great, but my dresser also donated to it and these are the best donations. We saw $10 donations with a note attached; with just, “We love you” and “We miss the arts.” And people saying, “I don’t have a lot of money, but I just want to show my support for everyone who is out of work right now.” The idea being that all of us in the arts have helped other people and brought joy to their lives. It is the 400-plus people who donated. They want to return that favor and show us that when we can’t perform, they still love us and still want to respond to us.

TB: Simply amazing. Would you mind sharing a little bit about your background and where you are at in your career now?  

NH: Sure. I was always a musical theater kid growing up and didn’t know much about opera at all. Then I decided—like a lot of people do—that I was going to use music as an extracurricular to get me into a better school. So I applied to a bunch of universities that had liberal arts programs, because I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I ended up going to McGill University, where I did my undergrad up in Montreal. They didn’t have a musical theater program so I got thrown into classical music and opera.  
      I couldn’t read music at all and I was in my first opera in the fall. I was like, “This is kind of cool.” I’m from New York originally and I went back during our February reading week and decided I should probably see an opera at some point if I’m going to continue to study them. So on back to back nights, I saw the Zeffirelli Traviata and Bohème at the Met. I was like, “Wow, I like this. This is neat.” Years later (I’m going to skip ahead and then I’ll go back), one of the amazing things is I’m now in the Met Opera Chorus, so I looked up and found that production of La Bohème. And I realized I was now singing in the chorus with a number of the people who were in it. Actually, the person who played Schaunard in that production later became a full-time chorister. He sits next to me in the dressing room. It was a full-circle experience for me.
      So I studied at McGill for a while and during that time I was doing young artist programs in the summers. I did things like Seagle Music Colony and a Toronto program called Summer Opera Lyric Theater. Then I went on to do my Master’s at University of Michigan and stayed there for another two years doing a specialist diploma. I was still doing the young artist program thing. I did Ashlawn Opera, Ohio Light Opera, Glimmerglass, and Chautauqua. Then I graduated into doing the full-year young artist programs and more summer programs. I was doing that for a couple of years and was just at the point where I was starting to make my transition into being a principal artist, putting seasons together that were a combination of roles at smaller regional companies. I was based out of Chicago at the time, so most of my stuff was happening around there. I also did some extra chorus work at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and sang a little bit with the Chicago Symphony Chorus.
      Then on a whim, I was in New York for a workshop at the Lincoln Center Theater [LCT3] and they were doing the Met Chorus auditions. I thought maybe I could pick up a show or two there in the chorus. So I auditioned and then four months later I got a call saying, “We’re considering you for the full-time chorus. Would you be interested in that?” At that point, I never thought of myself as a professional chorister. I love doing chorus and everything like that, but it was always to make connections and fill things in with new small roles at places like Lyric Opera of Chicago. So I sat on it for a little while, but told them to keep considering me and I would love to hear about it.
      Two weeks later, they finally got back to me and by that point I was like, “I want this so badly.” I had started to worry that maybe they had gotten the wrong idea from me. Then they got back to me and said, “A spot has opened up. We’d like you to join.” I said yes and that was the start. It would have been six and half years ago now, [because] I started that August. My first performance at the Met was Le Nozze di Figaro, which was great because Figaro was my role. I love doing it as a principal. My sixth season ended two months early and now we’re looking at whenever season seven is going to start...
      The other thing I should mention is during my time in the chorus, I have gotten more involved with the internal workings of the organization. Four years ago, I founded this nonprofit, Met Chorus Artists, Incorporated. We put together a board and ended up doing this fundraiser. Then three years ago, I became the chair of the Met Chorus and the chair of the AGMA Negotiating Committee at the Met. I chaired the negotiations in 2018 and now we’re looking ahead at next August when we’ll have negotiations in the summer of 2021.

TB: Let’s back up a bit because one of the things that you alluded to was the fact that your season ended early. Obviously that is due to the pandemic. So can you take me through where you were and how you first realized that your life was going to be so dramatically affected by this?

NH: We were actually in the middle of rehearsal. It was on March 12, we were doing a musical rehearsal for Simon Boccanegra. We did an hour of singing and took a 10 minute break. Our chorus master, Maestro Palumbo, called us back and we all sat down to sing... Then he told us that we were all going home and that the Met had cancelled the next two and a half weeks through the end of March due to COVID.  
      This was something that we were getting a little suspicious would happen for a couple days before—that was the week when everything closed—but it was shocking. It was shocking to just leave rehearsal like that. We had an impromptu full chorus meeting where we just talked about how we’re going to get on this. And we talked about what this means for another half hour in the middle of the rehearsal room... And then we all went home.
      Then—I don’t remember, maybe March 18th or so—we heard from the Met that they were going to be cancelling the rest of the season. Again, not quite a surprise, because things were beginning to close. But I remember thinking over the course of that week, “The Met’s not going to close. The Met never closes.” The Met closed for a week for 9/11 [the Metropolitan Opera actually reopened the next day] and maybe for two snow storms in the past 20 years. It was hard to wrap your head around. And then you started to think maybe it would and what that means.

TB: So what does that mean for you? Take me through that as the Metropolitan Opera closes.

NH: Right at first, it is just, we all go home and wait. Then for a couple of weeks, we’re really just waiting because we don’t know if we’re going back April 1st or not. Then we got the news [that the Metropolitan Opera cancelled the remainder of its season]. The full-time people at the Met, which would be chorus, managers, a number of directors and some full-time supers, they got a little bit of money and we were promised health insurance throughout the closure. But once April 1st came there was no more money coming in.    
      So getting on unemployment and then the reality of, what are we doing this summer? What are we going to do now? A lot of people stuck it out, [but] we have had a ton of choristers who have left the city. A lot of people went home to their parents. My wife and I waited in New York for awhile. But when it became clear that we wouldn’t be going back, we started looking for options to get out of the city. Because New York City, in a small apartment, when you don’t have an income... [Shrugs]
      My wife is a cruise ship entertainer mostly and certainly cruise ships aren’t doing great right now either. So when you no longer have an income and you’re relying on unemployment, and that starts getting called into question in Congress, we started to ask what can we do? We packed up our bags, ended our lease, and now I’m based out of Puerto Rico. We’re going to be here until we see what is going to happen in December. Are we going to be able to go back in December?

TB: That is a big question... One side of this question is the independent contractor side, but as a Met Chorus regular you have a W-2, if I am correct? So can you talk me through what that means for unemployment in the arts?

NH: Having the W-2 has made unemployment easier, though congress passed the PUA so that 1099 employees will [also] be able to get unemployment. But that was a treacherous process. Though I think most of them have been able to get through the system. My wife had to do it and it took her forever. But she was able to get something from that.
      For us [Met Chorus], we were able to apply for unemployment pretty easily. But those first couple weeks were when the entire world was applying for unemployment and all the websites were down. They since streamlined the process. That’s been a help. So we were able to make that transition over to unemployment and to some extent with the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, the extra $600. It has helped cover the things that you need to cover throughout this time. So that has been hard.
      A lot of the people at the Met who you maybe think of as independent contractors actually do get W-2s. A lot of soloists are W-2 employees at the Met. But I know that it has been a lot harder for them. All my income comes from New York. That really makes the unemployment issue easier. However, for a person who does a little bit in New York, a little bit in Chicago, and a fair amount in Europe—as many American artists do—it’s been a lot harder to pick those pieces up.
      There are two things I would add to that, which are really hard right now. One is, as I said earlier, the full-time employees were promised their health insurance. That was great, and that was part of the agreement we reached back in March. [However,] We were unable to get that for everyone. It is difficult because itinerant soloists, dancers, and our extra choristers are also paid per performance and don’t get their health insurance through the Met. So there is no good or easy way for them to do that. So now they’re without income because all their contracts are backloaded and they don’t get their performance fee until they perform. So if there are no performances and they don’t have an obvious source for unemployment health insurance, then everyone has been put in a bad place.
      The more performance-y groups at the Met are the most at-risk groups at this time, which is why it was super important that we did this big fundraiser and that it was going to go to all the AGMA artists —the choristers, soloists, stage managers, stage directors, actors, and dancers—to give them something to try to fill in some of those gaps.

TB: Thank you for talking me through that. In following up, we’re also staring down the huge issue where that $600 a week [FPUC] may dry up. What would that mean for you?

NH: My wife and I don’t have children. We’ve always enjoyed the flexibility that comes from that. We don’t own an apartment or a house, so we would be able to get by. Especially considering I have health insurance, I’d be able to get by on basic unemployment. We could cut back. We’ve already cut back a lot. But we could really cut back and do it.
      I don’t know how people with families would be able to get by. I really don’t. Apparently my landlord is an angel because he let me out of my lease. But people with mortgages or who are stuck with another 10 months more of New York apartment rent pay, for many of those people, that $600 was going straight to mortgage payments and apartment rent. Especially since there are a lot of reasons to believe that the arts are going to be one of the last to return, I think there is a real fear that we’re going to lose a lot of artists.
      We are going to have artists who just can’t do it and are going to seek other jobs and other careers. They’re going to give up the thing that they’ve studied for their entire lives. My educational story is pretty standard. I did eight years of university to become a performing artist. That’s what a lot of people did. I think my greatest fear is that we could lose a lot of artists. It is sad. I’m concerned about the arts organizations. But I’m more concerned about the artists because they are as much at risk—if not more at risk—than anyone right now.

TB: What would you say is the hardest lesson that you’ve learned so far in this situation?

NH: On a basic level it is: you can’t take anything for granted. In this business or any business really, you’ve never made it. I’ll approach that statement from two places. We’ve had people who joined the chorus just this last year. You think you get into the Met Opera Chorus and “I’m there. I got it. I’m going to work here for awhile and I’m going to have health insurance. Eventually, I’m going to retire and I’ll have a pension.” You can’t count on that.
      On the other side of it, it’s been sad and in many ways very tragic to see some of the biggest name soloists in our industry publicly talking about how this is a difficult time for them financially. I think it is a lesson that anyone who goes into this business has to go into with their eyes open. You don’t go into this business for financial security. You go into this because you love it and you’re going to stick it out.
      I think I said ‘you never make it’, but you do. You just have to make it again everyday. That’s what the lesson really is; you can’t take anything for granted. For the whole performing arts or maybe in life, I’m not sure. I’ve said this to my wife several times, I think I’m going to stop predicting things. I was sure that the Met couldn’t close for nine months. Then it closed for nine months and maybe more. So I think that’s the biggest takeaway.

TB: So looking at the artistic side, how has this impacted your creative process? Are you singing?

NH: I had a lot of trouble singing. It was very difficult. I did a little bit of stuff. But especially in the first couple months after things closed, there was a lot of... I don’t want to call it pressure, because it was a lot of ingenuity. Like, we have to keep the arts going on social media and we have to put all that out. I did a little, but I have had no interest in singing for about three months and did almost none.
      A week ago would have been our first day back in rehearsal at the Met and today would have been the first day of a preseason proper when the house really started to open up again. So I am happy to report—I don’t know if this was subconscious or whatever—the past week, I’ve felt that old desire to sing again. I’m usually a person who is constantly singing and this took me out of singing completely. So I dove into the union stuff, fundraising, and into political action. I should also say, I’ve gone back and am getting another degree.

TB: Oh, what degree?

NH: Well through the union, they are giving free undergraduate education. So I’m 16 credits into a business management degree with a labor focus right now. I just finished my summer semester and so I’ve been working really hard on all that stuff. But the singing had not been an interest and now it is maybe becoming one again.
      I had a friend who shared an aria with me that she was writing before this (I think she sent it to me on March 10th). Then the world exploded and I never looked at it. Now I’ve got a renewed desire to do that. I’m hoping to do a little recording of it at some point in the near future. I have another friend who is putting together a virtual operetta and I’m going to be doing something in that. So finally, I feel like singing again.

TB: So it sounds like when this happened you had to step away from it. Then through time you’ve allowed yourself to heal and come back to it more gradually.

NH: I think that’s probably right. So much of what we do in this business is preparation for something or getting in front of people and performing. I love being on stage. I mean, I love opera, but if I could dance and I couldn’t sing, I’d probably be a dancer. If I could act, I’d be an actor. I just want to be onstage in front of people. And having no prospect of that, it just took me completely out of doing anything. Now, I’ve turned back to it organically and said, “This is still something that is valuable for me and I want to do something with it.”

TB: You alluded to this a little bit before, but minus a pandemic, tell me a little bit about where you would be and what you would be doing.

NH: Normally, I would have finished my season in May and then I would have been off for two and a half months. We would have started rehearsals last Monday, which would have been the period we would have started our preseason before we open. It would have been first music and then staging rehearsals. Then we work on stage for the new productions of the 2020-2021 season.  
      We were going to open with Aida, which is obviously always a big chorus show, so that was something we were really looking forward to. It is neat when you do a new production of a show you’ve done a lot, because you get to dive into it in a way that sometimes you don’t always have the time to do during a regular pre-season for a revival. So I think musically, we were going to be able to really get even better with it.
      During those two and a half months, I always do some performing. The past three years it has been working on cruise ships. I’ve worked as both a cruise ship entertainer and last year, I was assistant cruise director on a ship that was circling around the Baltic and Norway in Scotland and Ireland. It was beautiful. I don’t know exactly what I would have been doing. I probably would have been doing some performing throughout the summer. I probably would have gotten back on a cruise ship and worked there for at least part of the summer.

TB: So let’s talk a little bit about the future. How do you think that this situation is going to change the musical landscape as we move forward?

NH: As a person who said earlier in the interview that I think I’ve stopped making predictions, I’m a little trepidatious about saying. [Laughter] I guess in the long term if you were an outsider looking in or you were an alien coming down to earth and you landed in 2018 and again in 2022, and you looked at opera in both those times, I personally don’t think it will be different to an outsider.  
      I don’t want to say we will go back to business as usual though. I see a company like the Met going back to a large season—they usually do 220 operas—but maybe they’ll do less than that. We’re already seeing the value of creativity, performing, and trying new things; and honestly, working with artists to find new ways of doing things. Those seem to be the things that are working right now. They are going to continue to be the things that work in the short term and maybe even the middle term. That’s what we need to be doing. We need to be trying new things.
      The Met, what they have done that I think really got out ahead of this was making those HD broadcasts that they have been filming for years. It’s increased their viewership by making those available now. I know it has increased subscriptions to Met on Demand. But it has also exposed a lot of people to opera who wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed. So I think that was really good.
      Now you’re seeing other companies: like Madrid that just finished up a month of La Traviata in a whole different format and setting that seems to have been a relative success. So I think in a business where creativity has not always been valued and where we are just doing things as we’ve always done them, the companies that are going to thrive and come out of this stronger are the ones that are going to try new things now. We will think about how opera gets made and how we can think about this art form that we love and try new things with it.

TB: So let’s talk about young artists and also emerging artists during this time. What would your advice be to those two groups?

NH: Oof! I don’t know if you could pick a worse time to become a singer. I left school in 2010, so we were a little past the Great Recession. In general the advice I like to give young artists is to watch every part of the process as it gets created, because there are so many different ways to work and have a living in this art form that we love. Pay attention to what the directors do. Pay attention to what everyone is doing at all times when you’re in rehearsal. That’s one of the things I do like to say to young artists. But that is not great advice now because there are no rehearsals going on... 
      I’m starting a certification in SEO [Search Engine Optimization] today through Coursera. This is a time when you can work on things for when they come back. And again, I’m a believer that they will. You have to be an entrepreneur essentially. So work on those things... I was also just saying that I haven’t been able to sing in three months and I doubt I’m alone. I know I’m not alone. My heart just goes out for the people who are trying to get a start. But at least they won’t have any illusions about the security they might have. They’ve hit the worst patch for opera in living memory.

TB: So I think that one of the things that you were saying is; be kind to yourself, right? Take it one day at a time.

NH: Right and do what you can to improve. Try to learn. Maybe work on a language. But if you can’t, don’t. Just take care of yourself. Mental health is a big part of what is going to get us through this. I’m very fortunate that I’m married to a person I love and I’ve been isolated with her. But not everyone is so lucky. So the only advice I can think of right now is just to take care of yourself.

TB: So in closing up here, I have two more questions. First off, is there anything else that you would like to add to our conversation?

NH: I guess one thing—and this may be me on my union soapbox a bit—we already talked about how we raised half a million dollars. If the chorus had just tried to raise that money for itself—or the 80 person chorus—first of all we wouldn’t be able to do it as a nonprofit. But we wouldn’t have gotten the donations that we got. We wouldn’t have gotten the donation from the board. It’s the fact that there was a desire to help all the people in our business—the stage managers, soloists, and those different groups—and because of that, everyone is going to be helped more.
      The word solidarity has been thrown around a lot. For me, this is my new favorite example ever of why solidarity is important. Because we were able to raise half a million dollars. Because we embraced solidarity. Because we wanted to help as many people as possible and thereby strengthen themselves.

TB: Last question, what is your video binge recommendation for the pandemic?

NH: We had two main TV shows during the pandemic and then [I’ll give] one non-TV recommendation. One was “The Good Place”. Then the other was—we watched it partly because we were moving down to Puerto Rico and we were working on our Spanish—”Money Heist.” Really good.
      Then the only other thing, I finally read Ulysses, which I have been meaning to read for a long time. I have a good friend; we had a book club going and we’ve moved it to Zoom. It’s a two person book club, but we read Ulysses together.

TB: Reading books is always appreciated! Thank you so much for chatting with me today.

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Choristers Without A Chorus: How The Pandemic Has Changed Our Lives

What happens when artists can’t make art together? Met Chorister Brandon Mayberry interviewed many of his colleagues to get a sense of how the chorus was faring during the extended closure of the Metropolitan Opera due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and wonders what the future may hold for all of us.

by Brandon Mayberry

Thursday, March 12th, 2020 began as a typical day in the life of a Metropolitan Opera chorister.  It was late morning as we assembled in List Hall to rehearse music for a handful of upcoming operas, still recovering from the previous night’s performance, which was a scratch tape (a recorded performance that precedes the Live In HD broadcast that following Saturday) of the demanding new François Girard production of Der Fliegende Hollander. After returning from a scheduled 10 minute break, Chorus Master Donald Palumbo announced that the remainder of the rehearsal had been canceled, that we were to exit the building as soon as possible, and that the Metropolitan Opera would be closed for the next two weeks. There was only enough time to say a few quick goodbyes to our colleagues, while contemplating which belongings we could shlep home on a moment's notice.

Four months later, still furloughed from our jobs due to COVID-19, we have a lot to unpack. Two weeks of closure turned into a cancellation of the rest of the 2019-20 season, as death counts in and around New York City soared. Then, in June, the Met announced that the Fall portion of the 2020-21 season would be canceled as well. Uncertainty looms heavily while the spread of the virus remains unchecked in large portions of the United States. Many of us furloughed at the Met are dependent on the State and Federal Pandemic Unemployment Benefits (PUA), the latter which is set to expire at the end of July. PUA, provided by the federal government, is critical to many in the chorus who are already running low on savings and struggling to see a future where they can support themselves and their families. Many have found subletters for their apartments or have given up leases altogether, moving away from the costly areas surrounding New York City and Northern New Jersey.

Beyond the unemployment statistics and impassioned social media campaigns are real people who are unable to do their job. How will our job change? Will there be a job at all? How do I make ends meet until there is a vaccine? Will the government come to our aid? We all grapple with these questions while desperately trying to find financial and physical security amidst the shifting sands of the current landscape. 

One of Rachele Schmiege’s incredible pour paintings.

Several members of the chorus have graciously allowed a look behind the curtain of their lives in order to illustrate how this pandemic has affected them over the first four months of our furlough.

Soprano Rachele Schmiege, having joined the regular chorus this past season, candidly admitted that "for a long time after March 12th, I did not want to sing, watch opera, or even hear music. I felt like everything I worked so hard for (a coveted position with the Metropolitan Opera) turned on its head overnight. It took awhile to be okay with my new normal." Rachele stuck it out in New York City for a month before she and her husband left their apartment to move in with her parents in the Midwest. "We are continuing to evaluate our life and situation on a weekly basis." While furloughed, Rachele has remained busy as she continues to learn and create, something many of us have needed in order to maintain balance and purpose. "I'm doing a daily vocal course, a Non-Violent Communication course, helping family members build websites, I joined a bookclub, and I’m working with the Met Opera Chorus Social Media Committee." Rachele's creative pastimes include knitting, gardening and, recently, pour painting. "Pour painting has become an unexpected joy. My mom had some canvases and some left over acrylic paint. I watched a zillion YouTube videos to learn techniques and look at color combinations. I am proud of my progress and I have a few I would hang up and proudly display."

Rachele Schmiege has taken up pour painting as a creative outlet during the furlough.

One chorister who wishes to remain anonymous comes from a family of war veterans. “When crisis hits, we run towards danger, not away from it.  When COVID hit, I wanted to find a way to help support my family and also contribute to my community during this crisis. I found that working on the front lines as a COVID screener for the IBM corporation since April 1st."

Tenor Dustin Lucas and his wife Lexi are the proud parents to toddler Alivia and baby Isabelle, born this spring. "Life has been turned upside down" as his family was forced to sell their recently renovated home and relocate due to the virus. "The stress of everything leaves me wondering if I will ever get through this without therapy." He implores artists to prepare for the continuation of pandemics such as this one and to develop multiple marketable skill sets.

Suzanne Falletti and her precious pups.

When it comes to trimming monthly costs, veteran chorister Suzanne Falletti says, "There's just so much one can do." Falletti, who doesn't have the option of moving in with family, contends that even if that were an option, the savings from moving would likely be lost when considering the costs of storage and moving fees. "And there's all the emotional considerations to think of as well. When everything else seems out of your control, the one thing many of us might feel comfort from is our home. Giving that up would be a huge loss of stability."

Fellow soprano Anne Nonnemacher, celebrating 20 years in the chorus, sees it similarly. Years ago, she made the costly decision to live in Manhattan with her husband and son in exchange for valued family time, due to the challenging work week that is typically demanded of a Met chorister. "Despite the dire situation and the fact that a lot of people have lost their jobs, from no fault of their own, there has been no rent relief." She admitted that having moved several times since her son was born, she simply couldn't stomach the thought of doing it again.

Anne Nonnemacher, at home with her son Elliot and husband Louis.

Anne’s husband, who is a recording engineer primarily focused on classical music, has had all of his upcoming events canceled or indefinitely postponed, which leaves both of them essentially unemployed. "It was, and is, a shock. As a performing artist, I am certainly familiar with not getting the gig or not getting paid much, but I have never done ‘no work’ for any significant amount of time. It doesn't feel good. I like to feel like I'm contributing something to the world." For so many of us at first, making music made us sad and was a reminder of the loss we had to come to terms with. But in time, Anne's fervor for music returned, with the help of her husband Louis. "Eventually my husband and I started playing guitar and vocal music together; Renaissance music and Mozart aria arrangements we used to perform." This led them to presenting a virtual performance for her son's school. 

Tenor Salvatore Rosselli, twenty-two seasons at the Met, has found particular solace and connection to his beloved colleagues via the Met Opera streaming content and the weekly Zoom meetings. Sal regrets having lost six people to this nasty virus within his circle of friends and family, adding, "I have had to be careful with my expression of sympathy, so I would not become too depressed." While Sal's financial situation is stable, he "cannot emphasize enough the hardships many of my younger colleagues will be facing and that living on a maximum weekly unemployment of $504 a week will not be easy, especially if the current supplemental $600 isn't extended beyond July 31st."

In the past four months, Mezzo Rose Sullivan left her apartment, moved into her childhood home, and took care of her mother for two weeks, who had contracted COVID-19. “I was furloughed for weeks, which became months, which became the rest of the calendar year." She also embarked on and finished the Artist's Way with a friend. Since moving back into her apartment in New York City, she has enrolled in an intensive life coach certification program.

Brian Anderson, Christina Thomson Anderson, and their two children, Oliver and Annika.

Mezzo-soprano Christina Thomson Anderson and her husband, tenor Brian Anderson are both in the chorus, and have 2 children at home. “Like so many in the performing arts, we have found ourselves faced with the deepest financial uncertainty of our lives. Brian and I encouraged one another to stay centered. There was so much coming at us: adjusting to the full-time homeschooling of our children, while wondering how we would weather this financial storm, even as reports of the pandemic grew ever more ominous." Christina referenced the quote,  "an unhappy bird cannot sing,” shared by a former voice teacher, as she alluded to the sorrow and uncertainty that led to an unintended moratorium on making or listening to music for the first few months after being sent home.

That was until late May when one day her 8-year-old daughter first pulled out her violin and then later shifted to playing some piano pieces she had been working on earlier in the year. Christina, watching it all said, "My heart began to open. From that moment on, we began to play more music, singing together at home and in the car, belting out show tunes and country songs, and even opera, together. Experiencing music again, through my children, has kept it alive for me." Brian has been taking IT classes as they continue to contemplate a way forward. "Many have left the city, but for now, our family is staying. Our children are settled in schools, we are settled in our community, and New York City is very much our home."

Through the clouds of struggle there are stories emerging of how being cooped up together has galvanized and deepened the bond between family and loved ones. For example, Christina points out, "We have experienced blessings that have been uniquely gifted to us through these circumstances. Because of the furlough, my husband and I have been the ones to put our kids to bed every night for the past five months. We are very aware that this cloistered family time may never come again, at least in this way, so we cannot help to observe the deeper connection that has grown between us and our kids." 

While Anne also echoes Christina and Brian's sentiment regarding having more time with her child, she adds, "I did have the chance to see, in more detail, what kind of things go on in school and observe more of the dynamics between my son, his teacher, and other classmates." She also implores those who can to help artists in need. The Met she says, "is a place that was built by people that wanted to create a place to present the highest quality experience and were not afraid to support it, despite the costs."

Suzanne's coping strategies involve finding comfort and companionship that her dogs bring. She's also busy creating a teaching website, took an intensive voice science workshop and is a member of an ongoing teacher mentoring program of David Jones. She's inspired by rising Met star Lisette Oropesa's online masterclass series and gives credit to her and others for "finding creative ways to keep the arts alive."

Soprano Lynn Taylor, who has had a varied career encompassing jazz, opera, musical theater, modeling, and acting acknowledges, "One positive thing this pandemic has done for me is afford the distance to meditate on the meaning of how I've spent my life and career, which has brought more pleasure than paranoia." 

There is one silver lining to report: since publication of this article, close to $300,000 has been donated to the Met Chorus Artists fundraising campaign, with more on its way! This will provide individual grants to many Met AGMA artists suffering financial hardship who have lost contracts at the Met as a result of the closure.

I thank my courageous colleagues for sharing their stories, which I'm sure all of us can connect to and sympathize with on some level. I'm wishing all of my many colleagues peace, good health and a speedy return to performing together. Thank you to all of the many supporters of the Metropolitan Opera and our artform. We are relying on you now more than ever, as we will most likely be the one of the last industries to return to work. Together we shall overcome. 

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Alumni Corner: The Importance Of Staying Connected

by Brandon Mayberry and Carolyn Sielski

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While many of us have social media to stay connected to the outside world, we shouldn’t forget that not everyone has that outlet during this rapidly changing landscape, where real life social distancing is the name of the game.  Senior citizens in assisted care facilities/nursing homes, or isolated at home without families to care for them, are most vulnerable to the effects of this extreme social isolation. While we attempt to protect this vulnerable age group from contracting this deadly virus, we shouldn’t lose sight of the emotional toll this isolation can take in the meantime. 

Carolyn Sielski by the Lincoln Center fountain.

In the spirit of connection in all its many-splendored forms, allow me to introduce Met Chorus Alumna and current Met Opera Chorus Retiree Coordinator Carolyn Sielski.  Carolyn has been brilliantly facilitating that connection for the last 11 years among the 60 retired choristers. 

Here’s a look into Carolyn’s history as chorister at the Met, and the role she now plays as the Met Chorus Retiree Coordinator, in her own words.

     When I was hired in June 1986 by David Stivender, I had already been married 18 years and was busy raising 2 teenage daughters. I had taught public school music, was a member of the New York City Opera, had a church job, toured in 2 national opera company tours, and was playing violin in a semi-professional orchestra. 

   Life changed after that successful audition one afternoon, where David described every opera for which I would be responsible and have memorized for the first chorus rehearsal in August! I was presented with a huge stack of music from John Grande, the Met librarian. Then I was taken to the costume department for measurements. I could barely find my way around the corridors of the building!  The entire summer I spent collecting recordings, making tapes, and studying operas. Something that has always stayed with me was the musty smell of the old scores, browned with age and stained with coffee cup rings and pencil markings from choristers before me. I knew that I was in possession of sacred and historical treasures.

     Highlights of my 21 year career at the Met are numerous, but I’ll enjoy mentioning a few.  

Carolyn as the page in Rigoletto.

     My first solo as the Page in Rigoletto was a thrill for me, anticipating the beat while singing in the upstage tower. I remember my beautiful costume with the previous pages’ name label sewn on the inside of the costume. Although I had my own dressing room in the principal artists area, nobody would dress me because I was just a chorister! My husband happily dressed me that night. 

     Another highlight was being selected to sing one of the nuns in Dialogues of the Carmelites!  Being part of that history inspired my husband and I travel to the Cimetiere de Picpus in Paris and retrace the history and remains of the nuns.

    It was a highlight to work with the great artists of the Golden era: Domingo, Pavarotti, Milnes, Peters, and Sutherland, to name a few. Also, it was a joy to perform in Zeffirelli’s glamorous productions of La Bohème, Carmen, Turandot , Tosca, Cav/Pag, Otello, Don Giovanni, La Traviata, and Falstaff.  (Editor’s Note: Only Zefferelli’s Turandot and La Bohème remain in the current repertoire at the Met.)  They all contained beautiful and realistic sets, with costumes Zeffirelli designed himself.  He once took the time to give each chorister a personalized, autographed sketch of an act of one of his operas.  (I have mine framed on the wall in my living room.)

Carolyn looking positively glamorous as a bridesmaid from Otto Schenk’s production of Götterdämmerung.

     When I retired in 2007 after 21 years, there was a transition for me.  It’s that ego thing that’s created when you realize that you had the best chorus job anywhere, but it’s not who you are anymore.  But I do love being retired now, traveling to Europe with my husband and trying to stay connected with old friends, other Met retirees and my family. I don’t miss the daily commute by car from New Jersey into New York City. But I’m busy on my own terms.

   As retiree coordinator, I want to keep the retiree traditions alive, which were originated by [former Met choristers] Elinor Harper and Elyssa Lindner. There has always been a party given every few years for the newest batch of retirees, sponsored by the regular chorus. The party is usually a first-class send-off at the Met with speeches, food, plaques, special souvenir photo albums, and an “In Memorium” recognizing retired choristers who have passed on. It’s a reunion event that all the retirees look forward to.    

      The Retiree Coordinator’s responsibilities have increased since I have taken over.  I create an updated retiree directory each year with emails, addresses and phone numbers, and a newsletter which highlights retiree news. The retirees give a voluntary donation which covers expenses for the directory and postage. When a retiree dies, we use some of the funds to send flowers to the funeral or donate to a charity or organization in their memory. This way, we always remember our Met family.

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Statement On The Met Season Cancellation

The Met Opera Chorus is deeply saddened by the news of the cancellation of the remainder of the Metropolitan Opera 2019-20 Season.  This is a difficult time for the company and everyone who works so hard to make magic on our stage over 200 times a year. We will persevere and overcome this challenge and remain a chorus united, even in the face of unprecedented adversity.

We echo our union, the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), who represent chorus, soloists, dancers, stage managers, stage directors, and actors, in a call for emergency relief for all artists affected by the current crisis.

"While we appreciate what the Met has done to assist artists after bargaining with AGMA, like keeping health insurance going for certain artists who receive their health insurance through the Met, it's simply not enough during this pandemic. Our artists are facing a scary and uncertain future; they depend on performance and rehearsal fees to survive and they are out of work indefinitely. Many do not qualify for unemployment, many will lose health coverage, and many are not sure how they will continue to pay their bills. To that end, AGMA is lobbying for federal, state, and local emergency relief. We are depending on our signatory companies, including the Met, to support our artists and to help amplify our message that our artists need COVID-19 coverage and emergency benefits."

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La Damnation de Faust: A Chorister's Synopsis

In the Met’s concert production of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, the chorus is tasked with expressing the complex emotions of various characters without sets, costumes, or makeup, while holding scores in the traditional style of an oratorio. To give you an idea of what to expect from the performance, tenor Daniel Clark Smith gives us a chorister’s perspective of the first half of the piece.

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Elina Garanca and the Met chorus in a concert presenation of Berlioz’s “La Damnation de Faust.” Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera

by Daniel Clark Smith

Hector Berlioz called La Damnation de Faust a "dramatic legend", not an opera or an oratorio. Regardless of how you define it, the piece is a tour-de-force for the chorus. When performed as a concert piece, as we do this season at the Metropolitan Opera, the cast and orchestra must bring the drama to life without the help of costumes, set pieces, and props. Just as our four principal singers must sing with boundless expression, the Met Opera Chorus (at nearly 100 singers) depicts characters both natural and supernatural with only their voices. The chorus parts require a myriad of vocal colors, diction, and dynamics to realize characters from devils to angels, and everything in between.

The opera begins with Faust singing of the arrival of Spring, which awakens memories of his youth. The chorus' first appearance, the Peasants' Dance, uses the bright vowels of our "tra la la" chorus to mock Faust's age, as our accented laughing figures whirl around him. Dancing, the shepherdesses' flirt with their dresses, which leads to the tenors' third verse - a dialogue between amorous peasants. Tra la la, indeed!

The piece continues with the Hungarian March played magnificently by the Met Orchestra, an often excerpted concert piece of its own. Passing armies leave Faust alone in despair when our Easter Hymn raises his spirits and reminds him of his faith. For the chorus, the Easter Hymn is full of gorgeous, long melody lines, sung with clear diction and lightness of tone. The harmonies swell like those of a grand organ, bringing the opera house to church. Only the harmony of the final Hosannas hint at a sense of foreboding for Faust.

The Auerbach Cellar. (Source: www.hberlioz.com)

And with that sudden shudder to a minor key, Méphistophélès is introduced. The demon convinces Faust that he has all the answers, and we are swept into a tavern in Leipzig: "A boire encor!" - "Another drink!" The next sequence of choruses begins with the robust, virile energy of a tavern featuring rhythmic four-part men's music -- a full-throated Barbershop sound with liquor added. When we've finished our celebration of being in a smoky wine-filled tavern, we call out for a funny story -- Brander the Bartender has one to tell, if he's not too drunk to remember it! It's the Song of the Rat who has found himself cooked. The scene devolves into a drunken, slurred "Amen" fugue, replete with exaggerated vocal glissandos and, at times, annoying repetition. The piece seems to be the composer's way of mocking the musical form itself, and for us, it's a drunken Requiem for that poor rat. Following this ode is the Song of the Flea, this time sung by Méphistophélès. The Orchestra has all the "flea" action in this one, with string lines that buzz and scratch, and the Chorus joins in with laughter and "Bravos". Sharp accents in our last line depict the demise of the flea: "Écrasons-la soudain!" - "Let's squash it immediately!"

Maestro Edward Gardner, Ildar Abdrazakov (as Méphistophélès) and the Met Chorus and orchestra. Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera

One of the most beautiful choruses we sing this season defies staging: the Chorus of the Gnomes and Sylphs. There is nothing better than one's own imagination and Berlioz' ingenious orchestration to portray the scene. Méphistophélès takes the audience and Faust out of Leipzig to the banks of the Elbe River, where we immediately feel the trees around us. A beautiful clarinet solo melts into a bassoon line, and we sense the lush greenery and the magic of the imaginary spirits Méphistophélès calls forth. We are the gnomes and sylphs, singing gossamer lines that ebb and flow with the wind. Long vocal lines are balanced with whispers of text throughout the piece, adding texture to the woodland setting. Faust dreams of a girl walking through the woods, and when we climb out of the texture to say "Elle t'aimera!" - "She will love you!", Faust calls out for Marguerite. This sets up the rest of the drama: Méphistophélès promises to lead Faust to his love.

These varied and extreme vocal colors keep us busy throughout the performance, and hopefully give the audience much fodder for their imagination. This season's four performances of La Damnation de Faust not only provide us with the opportunity to listen to the peerless Met Orchestra (led by Maestro Edward Gardner) and this phenomenal quartet of soloists (Elīna Garanča, Bryan Hymel & Michael Spyres, Ildar Abdrazakov, and Patrick Carfizzi) but they are an opportunity for the Chorus to show our strengths in acting with our voices.

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The Metropolitan Opera is Proud to be Part of Pride

The whole Met Pride fam-damily! (Photo: Jonathan Tichler)

by Lianne Coble-Dispensa

Every summer, New York City erupts into multicolored joy to celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride Month, which, of course, culminates in the ever-popular Pride Parade. This year’s parade held particular significance, as it commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and at the same time, coincided with New York’s hosting of the World Pride celebrations, resulting in record numbers attending the event. The Metropolitan Opera was both honored and thrilled to participate, for the first time, in the Pride Parade this year, and we pulled out all the stops! Over 100 Met employees, all full-throated supporters of gay pride, donned gold-gilded t-shirts (with some in splashy costume pieces auctioned off during the Met’s t-shirt decorating event) and marched and danced with fierce energy & exultation as Met favorites Anthony Roth Costanzo and Stephanie Blythe belted out pop songs from our gold and silver parade float (and yes, they were as amazing as crossover artists they are opera artists!). 

Christoper Browner, mastermind and organizer of the Met’s pride parade presence. (Photo: Jonathan Tichler.)

Christopher Browner, an associate editor at the Met, took up the truly herculean task of organizing the Met’s presence in the parade this year. After marching with Dignity, a queer Catholic group, in the 2018 Pride parade, he was inspired to get the Met involved, at least with a public show of support on social media. He wasn’t even considering the idea of the Met actually marching. However, according to Browner, “Marsha Drummond, the head of the Met Education Department, and Will Berger, one of our radio producers and commentators, really deserve the credit for having the idea for the Met to march. Once they suggested it to me, I ran with it and set about petitioning the powers that be to allow us to march.” 

Everyone, including general manager Peter Gelb, was excited about the prospects of the Met’s participation in such an important event, and after getting the green light and wholehearted support from numerous departments, Browner took the lead and deftly balanced coordination with the Met administration, design team, and the production, graphic design, and marketing departments in order to bring us all, safely and effectively, to the parade on June 30th. “We had the best people, so it was executed brilliantly.”

(Enjoy a few snapshots of our exciting day at the Pride Parade! Photos are either taken by Met photographer Jonathan Tichler or by individual marchers.)

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Over 100 Met Opera employees marched together in the parade, including many members of the Met’s full-time and extra chorus, who took time out from their summer vacation to represent the Met. John Trybus, a full-time chorus member who identifies as gay, was excited to attend, and participate in, his first pride parade. “It was a fantastic experience,” he said. “As a gay man I appreciated the Met representing in the community.” Countless other Met employees who were happy to support their LGBTQ+ colleagues spoke of how important the Met’s involvement in the Pride parade was for them. Mezzo-soprano Liz Brooks Wentworth was proud to march with her friends and colleagues as an advocate for equal rights for all. “I’m so thankful to have been part of such an historic day. It was filled with inclusion, happiness, and love.”

Met chorister Brandon Mayberry was particularly moved by the Met’s inaugural involvement in the parade this year. Brandon feels this came “at a pivotal and historic time, with Sunday matinees being offered in order to sell more tickets and with our first openly gay music director, Yannick Nezet-Seguin.” To Brandon, it’s one of the many ways the Met can make itself more inclusive and approachable to new audiences. “It’s very exciting and bold, and that is exactly what is needed to keep up with and attract younger audiences, which is necessary for the future of opera at the Met and beyond!”

The Met Opera group waited patiently for three and a half hours past the Met’s assigned launch time, which was unsurprising considering the statistics: according to Wikipedia, 150,000 participants marched in the parade, with over 4 million watching and cheering them on.

Browner hung back a few steps and watched everyone start to march. “Seeing all of that joy and enthusiasm and love, I just watched it all for a few moments with tears in my eyes. And then to be a part of the March for Stonewall 50—it was one of the most life-affirming, joyous, loving experiences of my life.”

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Photo: Joshua South Photography

Lianne Coble-Dispensa joined the Metropolitan Opera as a member of the extra chorus in 2010, and went full time in 2015. She is the Editor-in-Chief for the Met Artists Newsletter, and is a member of the Met Chorus Artists executive board. When she's not singing opera or furiously copy editing this month's newsletter, she enjoys spending the lion's share of her free time cooking various delights in the kitchen, reading non-fiction, Crossfitting, and running moderately impressive distances. She is married to fellow chorister (and ultramarathoner/Crossfitter) Scott Dispensa, and they live in Teaneck, NJ with two ostentatiously named cats (Maximilien de Robespierre and Charles Hubert Hastings Parry), and one derpy puppy named Finnegan McCloud.

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A Chorister's Perspective: Porgy & Bess At The Met.

Porgy & Bess on the Met stage. (Photo: Ken Howard.)

by Jamet Pittman, soprano, and member of the Porgy & Bess chorus.

A Porgy & Bess room rehearsal with chorusmasters Donald Palumbo (at the podium) and Daniel Moody. (Photo: Jonathan Tichler)

On August 4th, 60 African-American singers from all over the country walked through the Metropolitan Opera stage door and convened in a C-level rehearsal room. We were all giddy with excitement to begin working on the Met's production of Porgy and Bess-- the first it had done in years. Some of us knew each other from the "opera scene"; others came from a musical theater background; still others came from professional choral groups. How ever we got here, we knew that we were embarking on a wonderful journey together.

In our first rehearsal, the sound of the chorus was astounding-- both in its beauty and its sheer power. I think it's safe to say that we all had visceral reactions to the sound we created: rich, full and—dare I say it— chocolaty! The tenors and basses were dazzled by the ethereal sounds of the altos and sopranos, while the women were blown away by the deep, strong male choruses. Baritone Quentin Oliver Lee said, "This sound showcases the Met's world-class standard. You don't get this sound just anywhere— you just get swept away with it!"

Here, we know that we are in great hands. Maestro David Moody, with wit and humor, took us through the more tedious (but all-important) aspects of the music, such as reinforcing note lengths, cutoffs and diction issues. Bass Kevin Gardner is new to Porgy and Bess. He says that going over the parts together "helps me to further understand the show. I'm having a great time." It didn't take long to realize that Maestro Palumbo, though a rather petite man, carries a big stick, musically speaking. He came in and gave us the finer points of context and mood so that we had not only power, but shape and intention. Maestro Palumbo was able to harness the exuberance of our group while revealing the certain sound he has in mind for this production. With his singular personality and infallible ear, he has a gift for bringing us into this space, to this performance, regardless of how many Porgys we've sung in the past. Gardner said, " It's nice to see Maestro Palumbo's excitement with our music-making. I understand why he is so intense about each note. I'm singing, but also listening." Quentin Lee was also impressed with Palumbo's exacting ear. "He hears parts so clearly. I've mostly done principal work, not ensemble, so it's interesting to learn how my notes factor with others."

Mezzo-soprano Linda Childs is a veteran opera soloist, production assistant and professional chorister. Having worn so many hats, she is always looking forward. "I wonder how the choral rehearsals will translate to the stage. Timing has to be precise. In the score, every entrance, every cut-off makes sense. I think we'll be facile enough to do what Maestro Palumbo wants." If we have trouble, or just need a reminder, he has the ability to correct us with obvious love for both the music and the musician.

As a soprano who has sung many times at the Koch theater, and also at Geffen Hall, but never at the Met-- I am thrilled to finally be here. It has been a dream of mine through undergraduate studies, post-graduate studies, and as a freelance singer in New York. Though some dreams may be deferred, some do actually come true when you least expect it--and in the most glorious fashion. I am thankful for the friendly, creative environment that has been prepared for us, and for the chorus of Porgy and Bess, the newest members of the Metropolitan Opera family.

Members of the full-time Met chorus mingle (and enjoy a fine fizzy beverage) with members of the Porgy chorus. (Photo: Jonathan Tichler.)

I was speaking with Gail Blach-Gill, a soprano-turned director/conductor of many Porgy and Bess performances around the world. We discussed how Porgy has been handled over time, and she feels that its time may finally have come. Not only do we have the wonderful score, but conductors who have taken the time to understand and truly study the music and its nuances. Pair that with singers that are bringing new levels of musicianship and artistry to it, and you banish the heavy-handed, over-sung, "it's-fine-because-they're-Black" mentality that has infected many versions. Truthfully, there are still some African-Americans that may be embarrassed by Gershwin and Heyward's portrayal of Gullah life on Catfish Row, but they cannot say that earnest, intelligent and respectful attention has not been paid by the people involved in this production. And when all these elements come together on the Met stage, it promises to carry the audience away on waves of joy and pain as deep and as high as any created by, perhaps, a hurricane.

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Porgy & Bess opens the 2019-2020 season on Monday, September 23rd. The dress rehearsal was an unparalleled success, and tickets are going fast. Very, very fast, in fact. Get yours before it’s too late!

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What Does A Chorister Do When The Met Is On Break?

The Metropolitan Opera has a loooooong season. We start rehearsal in the end of July, open our first production during the third week of September, and close 8 months later in mid-May; that means the Met chorus and all the other amazing artists and artisans who make the operatic magic happen are rehearsing, performing and creating for 9 ½ months each year!

So what does a member of the Met Opera Chorus do during their 2 ½ months not in the opera house? First and foremost, it’s a time of rest and recovery. A time to let the voice recuperate after a long and sometimes grueling season, to spend time with family and friends, and to travel. But it’s also a time to try new things, experiment, and expand our performing horizons! Choristers travel all over the world in search of new experiences and artistic opportunities. We wanted to take a moment to highlight a few of the exciting summers our choristers had.

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by Ned Hanlon

First up, Alexa Jarvis! Seattle native Alexa is a soprano in her second year as a full time member of the chorus. She took some time off from the Big Apple to head to the Windy City to perform with The Ravinia Festival in Bernstein’s Mass. Kevin Newbury directed this “mass”-ive [editor’s note: yay puns!] orchestral theater piece and Alexa performed as part of the 22-voice “Street Chorus,” alongside Paulo Szot who played the “Celebrant.” Happily for all those of us who missed it, the production was filmed for a national broadcast scheduled for 2020.

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Bass chorister Ned Hanlon traveled further away from New York than Alexa’s Chicago! During the month of July, Ned served as Assistant Cruise Director aboard the Azamara Journey as the ship cruised the Norwegian coast (including three nights above the arctic circle in the land of the midnight sun) and the British Isles. Responsibilities ranged from performing a solo cabaret show, managing and scheduling all onboard activities, ship-wide announcements, and even calling Bingo! Of course, as a bass voice, he brought more “low C’s” than “high C’s” to the high seas. Still, he created a solo show that told his life story through a combination of opera, operetta, and musical theater. Most importantly, he is now trained to fend off pirate attacks which, presumably, will come in handy the next time the Met performs Bellini’s Il pirata!

Is that Sharpless? No… just chorister Ned Hanlon in uniform as Assistant Cruise Director of the Azamara Journey.

Safety Advisory: do not look directly at the green sequin tuxedo jacket. Blindness may occur.

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First year soprano Rachele Schmiege had a big summer: she moved to New York and prepared to begin her career as a member of the Met Opera Chorus. But that didn’t mean she was going to take a break from performing! Her busy summer included back-to-back-to-back performances of A Handmaid’s Tale with Boston Lyric Opera, Elijah with Cambridge Community Chorus (extra fun because the tenor soloist was her husband), and La belle Helene with Odyssey Opera. After a summer so packed with music, joining the Met chorus might feel like a vacation (even with our 7 show weeks!).

La belle Helene with Odyssey Opera

Bows for The Handmaid’s Tale at Boston Lyric Opera with the great Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, at center.

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That’s just a few of the exciting summers that members of the Met Opera Chorus enjoyed. Other highlights included tenor Gregory Warren performing the role of Andres in Des Moines Metro Opera’s production of Lulu, soprano Marie Te Hapuku teaching voice for the Summer Academy of Orvieto, and soprano Lianne Coble-Dispensa singing in New York City Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

With opening night of the 2019-20 season just a few days away it’s fun to look back even while we look forward! Here’s to a wonderful summer and a wonderful season!

Byeeeeee, 2018-2019 Season!

The Metropolitan Opera Chorus, Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Chorus Master Donald Palumbo. Photo: Rose Callahan / Met Opera

by Lianne Coble-Dispensa

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Well, we all blinked, and another incredible season somehow passed us by. But what a season it was!

We said a fond farewell to Sonja Frisell's iconic Aida production in order to make way for an exciting new one conceived by Michael Mayer's creative team. We reveled in the opulence and luxury casting of Adriana Lecouvreur. We were delighted & bowled over by Ambrogio Maestri's quintessential portrayal of Falstaff. We gushed over Laurent Pelly's critically acclaimed and utterly charming production of La Fille du Régiment (and Javier Camarena’s High C’s)!

And of course, we welcomed the Met’s new (and universally adored) music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who has brought his characteristic artistry, musicianship, warmth, and personality to our productions of La Traviata and Dialogues des Carmélites. (We’re looking forward to seeing more of him next season as he conducts Wozzeck, Werther, Turandot, and our New Year’s Eve Gala with superstar Anna Netrebko.)

Despite our excitement about next season’s amazing offerings, we still brought our best to the final week of this season after successful openings of Götterdämmerung, the final chapter of Wagner's epic Ring Cycle, and Poulenc's excruciatingly beautiful Dialogues des Carmélites. These two audience favorites had limited runs, and we enjoyed looking out onto many full houses of extremely appreciative opera lovers. Hope you were able to get your tickets to those end-of-season gems! If not, you have countless exciting productions to choose from next season. Until then, enjoy your summer (we know we will!), and we’ll look forward to bringing you even more exhilarating, moving, dynamic performances this fall!

Outreach Corner: The Met Chorus Artists Head Upstate!

by Sara Heaton

Most opera fans vividly remember their first encounter with opera. Heck, even most non-opera fans remember their first encounter with opera! It’s not something one easily forgets. In addition to the grandness of it all, there’s that visceral experience of hearing the human voice create a sound so powerful, so emotional, and so beyond anything you could have imagined that sticks with you. It’s usually a make-or-break moment, the turning point when you either dive headfirst into opera obsession, or do a 180 and opt for alternate musical genres.

Judging by what I do now, that moment was clearly of the former variety. I was five when I attended my first opera, my parents having the genius intuition that their young daughter would a) be able to quietly sit through a whole opera, and b) that Carmen would make a good first impression. Right they were. The story goes that I walked out of the opera and claimed, “I want to be Carmen when I grow up!” Mission accomplished.

From Left to Right: Carol Wong, Ross Benoliel, Greg Warren, Nathan Carlisle, Sara Heaton, and Lianne Coble.

It was thrilling to be on the other side of that equation a few months ago in a concert designed to introduce opera to young kids. The Met Chorus Artists were invited by the Howland Chamber Music Circle in Beacon, NY to present a concert on their Classics for Kids series. Four times a year, the chamber series brings world-renowned classical musicians to perform family-centered concerts for Hudson Valley residents in the beautiful and historic Howland Cultural Center, an 1872 Richard Morris Hunt building originally used as a circulating library, now a center for cultural enrichment in the City of Beacon, a thriving town in the Hudson Valley. The wood-domed ceiling lends itself perfectly to chamber music and, as we found, operatic voices.

On a Sunday afternoon in February, five members of The Met Chorus Artists, accompanied by pianist Carol Wong, played to a packed house with audience members ranging in age from less than one to over sixty. The theme of the concert was the operatic voice and what it can do. We entered singing the Act IV opening chorus of Carmen, an easily recognizable tune with an exciting finale. Chorister Nathan Carlisle served double duty as both performer and Master of Ceremonies, seamlessly moving the program along while connecting with the audience in a genuine and personable way.

We gave them examples of the extremes of the operatic voice. We showed how sometimes we sing really high (soprano Lianne Coble-Dispensa belted out a super-loud high note)! Sometimes we sing super fast (baritone Ross Benoliel wowed them with “Figaro la, Figaro qua …”)! We gave examples of arias, explaining the different voice types, and of what it sounds like when we sing all together, giving a rendition of the finale from Le Nozze di Figaro.

Ross Benoliel, presenting a “sad” emoji, with good-natured encouragement from Lianne Coble-Dispensa and Nathan Carlisle.

The goal of the performance was to help the audience understand how opera conveys emotion through the music, allowing us to understand what the character is experiencing even if we don’t understand their words. To help with this task, we brought along something every opera singer loves -- props! Ours were emoji faces (oh-so-very au courant) that depicted three emotions: sad, happy, and in love. The kids loved guessing which emoji the singer was experiencing. Then Nathan picked a few kids to pick an emoji out of hat, and whichever emotion they picked, we sang a corresponding aria. To finish off the performance, we blew their socks off with the final chorus from Candide, “Make Our Garden Grow.”

By far the most gratifying part of the day was seeing the reactions across the kids faces in the audience -- awe, fascination, bright smiles, and, in some cases, hands over the ears. Several piped up to ask questions, or share their experiences with opera or singing in general. We had the pleasure to speak with many of them after the performance, posing for photos with budding opera fans, or talking to their parents about their appreciation of what we had brought to Beacon that day. Akiko Sasaki, board member of the Howland Chamber Music Circle, had this to say about the performance: “The Met Chorus Artists presented a spectacular concert at Classics for Kids! This concert was an introduction to opera for many kids and families. It was so thrilling to see everyone enchanted and enraptured by their performance. Everyone left the concert wanting to hear more opera!”

For those in attendance that day, it certainly wasn’t everyone’s first operatic experience (there were even some adults that came without children just to hear some opera)!. But for those kids and adults who got their first taste of opera, who knows? It could have planted a seed that will grow into a lifelong love of the art form. In the meantime, we’re all thankful for our fulfilling experience in Beacon, and look forward to future outreach opportunities!

The gang’s all here: from L to R, Greg Warren, Carol Wong (accompanist), Nathan Carlisle, Ross Benoliel, Lianne Coble-Dispensa, and Sara Heaton.

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Sara Heaton began her Met career in 2014 in the Extra Chorus, and joined as a full time member in 2016. When not singing, Sara enjoys cooking, gardening, exploring the outdoors, and tasting her husband’s cocktail creations. They’re proud to make their home in Beacon, NY in the beautiful Hudson Valley.

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Put On Your Sunday Best: Met Choristers With Church Jobs

by Lianne Coble-Dispensa

Opera singers don’t accept a job with the Metropolitan Opera Chorus because they’ve heard it’s a walk in the park. People aren’t applying for auditions by the thousands because they believe they’ll have copious amounts of time to put their feet up and eat Chinese takeout while watching Netflix. They sign on to the Met Chorus lifestyle knowing full well that the hours are long, the memorization work is fierce, and the toll on the body (both physically and vocally) can be considerable. Once the Met season opens at the end of September, Met choristers work 6 days a week without fail, with the one sweet promise of Sunday to spend with their family, to tend to mountains of accumulating laundry, and maybe, just maybe, to catch up on the sleep they’ve missed all week.

So it may surprise you that, after singing Monday through Saturday, many members of the Met Chorus wake up early on Sundays to sing again! If you haven’t spent time in a major urban area, or if you never experienced the kaleidoscopic miscellany of a freelance singer’s career, you may not even be aware that the idea of a “church job” exists. But in most major cities, when you mix a strong music scene with high-profile places of worship, you will find that churches and synagogues have the budget to hire talented professional musicians to improve the quality of their music ministry. Whether acting as soloists, members of a professional choir, or both, these Met choristers truly enjoy their Sunday morning church jobs because of how artistically and spiritually fulfilling the experience is for them, and relish the opportunity to share their gifts with a new and different community.

The choir of Brick Presbyterian Church performing for a Sunday service. Met chorister Jeremy Little (front row, second from the right) sings regularly with the group. In the back row, second from the right, one might spy Dan Hoy, the Met's Chorus Administrator!

If you happen upon Redeemer Presbyterian Church on a Sunday morning, you may well be treated to a choir filled with Met opera singers, or even a stirring solo from a member of the Met chorus. Soprano Belinda Oswald enjoys joining the church’s professional chorus for holiday services, and sings solos during services many times throughout the liturgical year. “I love to use my gift”, she says, and enjoys singing on Sundays at Redeemer for a number of reasons. Besides her deep commitment to her faith, she also loves singing arrangements written by Redeemer’s music director Tom Jennings, and enjoys the freedom of singing in a setting where there is less scrutiny and one can “produce the sound more freely”. She’s often joined by mezzo-sopranos Patricia Steiner and Catherine Choi Steckmeyer, who have been singing with the choir for years and enjoy soloing from time to time.

Other choristers, such as tenor Jeremy Little, baritone Scott Dispensa, and soprano Lianne Coble-Dispensa (who, if you didn’t catch the byline, wrote this article), are actually on the full-time rosters of their respective churches. Jeremy rounds out the 17 singers of the professional core of the choir at Brick Presbyterian Church (at 91st Street and Park Avenue). For Jeremy, performing sacred music at Brick Church holds a deep personal significance for him. “Sacred choral music is what brought me to music as a vocation in the first place, [and it] speaks to my desire for approaching and encountering something bigger than myself and the mundane. One may argue that non-sacred music offers the same- and I would certainly agree- but for me, sacred choral music resonates in its own special spot.” 

The professional choir of St. John the Divine during an Evensong service. Lianne Coble-Dispensa (front row, far right, in glasses, hiding behind the candelabra) and Scott Dispensa (second row, second from the left) are full-time members of the choir, on top of being full-time members of the Met Chorus.

Lianne Coble-Dispensa, now in her 4th full-time year at the Met, was a busy freelance singer before she joined the chorus, and has sung with the 16-member professional choir at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine for 6 years. Her husband Scott, who has sung full-time with the Met Chorus for 9 years, joined the St. John the Divine roster when a baritone spot opened up for two reasons: to see Lianne more often (Sunday is the chorus’s only day off), and to return to some of his favorite sacred choral repertoire. Scott was a sought-after professional choral freelancer before he joined the Met, and like Jeremy, sacred choral music and early renaissance and Renaissance polyphony are near and dear to his heart. He also made many lifelong friendships as a freelancer (as did Lianne), and their time at St. John’s offers them the opportunity to connect with their friends outside of the Met, as well as enjoy the benefits of sight-reading challenging polyphonic sacred choral repertoire and chant. St. John the Divine has two services on Sundays: a Choral Eucharist at 11:00am, and Choral Evensong at 4:00pm, with a rehearsal before each service. So their Sundays are not necessarily relaxed, but they are filled with rewarding musical experiences and fellowship, as well as the obligatory choir brunch between services.

Ned Hanlon (left) and Jeremy Little (right), soloing at Brick Presbyterian Church in John Stainer's Crucifixion Mass.

As if this wasn’t enough, the Met chorus boasts many other talented musicians who commit their time and efforts to performing at church. Twice a month, tenor Stephen Paynter acts as a worship leader for his church, which brings in over 500 congregants. Baritone Yohan Yi and tenor Christian Jeong both conduct their church choirs. And even bass Edward Hanlon, who is the Met Chorus Committee Chair (and rarely has a minute of free time on his hands), often subs in the choirs of various churches around the five boroughs.

So, as the holidays approach, keep your eye out for some joyful Met choristers who are grateful for the opportunity to bring you beautiful vocal music both on and off the opera stage!

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Lianne Coble-Dispensa joined the Metropolitan Opera as a member of the extra chorus in 2010, and went full time in 2015. She is the Editor-in-Chief for the Met Artists Newsletter, and is a member of the Met Chorus Artists executive board. When she's not singing opera or furiously copy editing this month's newsletter, she enjoys spending the lion's share of her free time cooking various delights in the kitchen, reading non-fiction, Crossfitting, and running moderately impressive distances. She is married to fellow chorister (and ultramarathoner) Scott Dispensa, and they live in Teaneck, NJ with two ostentatiously named cats (Maximilien de Robespierre and Charles Hubert Hastings Parry).

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Preseason Has Arrived!

A colorful picture of bass Jason Hendricks' season in a nutshell. (Photo: Jason Hendricks.)

by Lianne Coble-Dispensa

Summer is over for the Metropolitan Opera Chorus, if you can believe it! After 9 weeks of rest, relaxation, and recharging involving beach vacations and many cherished hours spent with family, the chorus started preseason rehearsals on Monday, July 23rd.

What is "preseason" exactly? It can be summed up in three words: practice, practice, practice.

For the past four weeks, we’ve been nestled in our seats in List Hall with a mountain of scores, singing through at least 14 different operas. On many days, after our musical rehearsals, we’ve descended a few flights of stairs to the Met’s rehearsal studios to stage Samson et Dalila with Darko Tresnjak, the show's brilliant director. In the next five weeks, we'll also be staging the other shows that will greet us in the first few weeks (and months) of the season, such as La Fanciulla del West, Aida, La bohème, and Nico Muhly’s scintillating new opera Marnie, which premieres at the Met in October.

Chorusmaster Donald Palumbo rehearsing the chorus in List Hall. (Photo: Lianne Coble-Dispensa)

Of course, in the few weeks preceding opening night, we’ll be heading to stage to run through each opera in costume with lighting, sets, soloists, and the incomparable Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

We're also thrilled to welcome three new full-time members of the Met Chorus: tenor Brian Anderson, soprano Abigail Mitchell, and baritone Jonathan Scott. All three have cut their teeth in the Met's Extra Chorus (who join us for operas that require larger groups of singers, such as Samson et Dalila, Turandot, Otello, and the Verdi Requiem, to name a few), and now they're primed and ready to take on the herculean effort of memorizing dozens of shows in a relatively short period of time! 

For now, all of us are happy to be back in the groove, concentrating on vocal technique, musicality, dynamics, repetition, and memorization of the 23 shows the chorus will participate in this season. We’ve got our work cut out for us, but we love our job, and there’s no place we’d rather be!  

Some lovely chorus ladies getting prepared for rehearsal in List Hall! (Photo: Lianne Coble-Dispensa)

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Get excited: the 2018-2019 Met Opera season is right around the corner!

As we wind down the 2017-18 season and look forward our much-deserved vacations, there’s still a flicker of excitement that will remain with all of us in the Met Opera chorus, and that is the promise of an exciting season to come! The 2018-19 season line-up looks smashing: great casting, beautiful sets, exciting new productions, and, of course, the exquisite music itself. Trying to decide what shows to see can be daunting: I mean, why not see them all?! However, if you need some help deciding on your subscription package, why not get the inside scoop from some actual opera professionals? We're here to help, as always.

Here’s what members of the Met Chorus are particularly excited about, in their own words:

Dan Smith: "There are plenty of revivals I will love (La Fanciulla del West is one!), but I’m most looking forward to the new productions of Samson et Dalila, La Traviata, Marnie & Adriana Lecouvreur. Samson has great choral music, a cool-looking, modern set, and Maestro Mark Elder, whom I remember fondly from doing the opera in 2001. We usually get the best seats in the house for the Bacchanale — I can’t wait to see how choreographer Austin McCormick treats the super-charged dance. And the singing will surely be phenomenal with Garanča and Alagna! The new La Traviata looks lush and stylish, and our new Music Director Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin will help us shape a new treatment of Verdi’s classic. Marnie will no doubt give us lots of musical textures to explore, since Nico Muhly has always been a champion of choral music. I always love diving into a brand new score! Adriana Lecouvreur features some of my favorite Met Opera singers — Anna Netrebko and Piotr Beczala, who always bring dramatic involvement and supreme music making. It features a pretty small chorus — I sure hope I’m cast in that one!"

Mary Hughes:  "Dialogues of the Carmelites! I have done it a few times and it’s an emotional roller coaster that has the most frenzied, brutal, and heroic end. I think that is the only show that I’ve ever cried in...maybe Suor Angelica, too, which is also coming back."

Liz Sciblo: "Dialogues of the Carmelites: one of the most exquisite pieces of music along with one of the saddest TRUE stories that many people don’t even know happened. This is an important piece that I wish was performed more often.

Falstaff:  One of the best and most imaginative productions I’ve ever seen. This comedic opera is perfection.

Samson et Dalila: Two words - Elīna Garanča. Enough said."

Sara Heaton: "The show that pops out for me is Marnie. I saw Nico Muhly’s Two Boys at the Met before I was in the chorus and thought it was one of the most exciting opera experiences I’ve ever had. The story had me on the edge of my seat, and the music told the story in such a poignant and compelling way. I have no doubt that Marnie will be a similar experience, except that this time I (might) be experiencing it from the other side! Plus, it includes two other loves of mine: Hitchcock, and 1950's style. I have a feeling this will be a must-see for next season."

Photo: Joshua South Photography

Lianne Coble-Dispensa: "As a lighter voiced soprano, I went through college unimpressed with anything Wagner wrote. ("Too loud." "God, just cadence already.") But this job has made me a complete Wagner convert, and I'm thankful for that, because the depth of feeling in his music is off the charts. One of my favorite pieces of orchestral music is Siegfried's Funeral March from Götterdämmerung. I absolutely cannot WAIT to see the show, and hear the world-class MET Orchestra play that stirring, exciting, heroic, unfathomably moving piece. I have goosebumps just thinking about it." 

Edward Albert: "Boïto’s Mefistofele was part of the Met’s inaugural season in 1883, racking up 67 performances here to date. I’ve never seen the opera, but often listened to highlights from the Caballe/Domingo/Treigle recording (do you remember vinyl highlight LPs?). In the famous Prologue and Epilogue, I think we’ll all be carried aloft by tremendous waves of sound. To paraphrase a Met slogan, 'The music must be heard — LIVE'."

Lynn Taylor: "Marnie! My favorite author Winston Graham wrote the book, Hitchcock filmed it to rave reviews, and the leads are Isabel Leonard and Christopher Maltman; how could it not be fabulous? Also Mefistofele, a favorite opera of mine, in which I recently saw my favorite bass (husband Steven Fredericks)!"

Meredith Woodend: "What exciting programming the 2018-19 season holds! Here are just a few highlights that I think are worth running to the box office for:

Samson et Dalila opens the season. It’s a story of love, betrayal and duty with voluptuous music and an incredible cast. The role of Dalila will be split between Elīna Garanča and Anita Rachvelishvili, two powerhouse mezzo-sopranos that know how to tell a story.  Roberto Alagna and Aleksandrs Antonenko will definitely be their equal in the role of Samson. This promises to be a spectacular start to the season.

La Clemenza di Tito brings forth a cast that will give new meaning to vocal acrobatics. Lead by Matthew Polenzani, Joyce DiDonato, Elza van den Heever, Christian Van Horn, Ying Fang and Paula Murrihy. I can't imagine better casting for this beautiful piece.

La Traviata gets a makeover with a gorgeous set designed by Michael Mayer. One of the most exciting things about this reimagining, aside from the aesthetics and the incredibly talented musicians, is that our fearless leader will join us in the pit. We are looking forward to Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin leading the extraordinary cast and incomparable MET orchestra.

Marnie is the new creation of composer Nico Muhly that will star the ever-talented Isabel Leonard.

Die Walküre is sure to blow the roof off the opera house. This will be an evening to remember."

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Check out the exciting season to come, and pick up a subscription while you're at it, so you can lock down those seats for your favorite shows! We can't wait to see you in September!

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What Are We Up To? - The April Edition

Do April showers really bring May flowers? Why yes, they do! (At least, one hopes!) April ALSO brings us the comedic and oh-so-charming new production of Massenet’s Cendrillion, and the return of two operatic jewels: Tosca (after a winter break) and Gounod’s tragic and romantic Roméo et Juliette (which was a new production last year). As the season winds down, there certainly is no rest for the chorus! We have been practicing our French diction, that’s for sure...

Joyce Di Donato & Alice Coote in a scene from Laurent Pelly's Cendrillon. Photo: Billy Cooper/Royal Opera House

by Liz Sciblo, with contributions by Lianne Coble-Dispensa

Cendrillon: This is, of course, the famous story of Cinderella, and its exciting to have this production finally mounted at The Met, after having successes at the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, and Santa Fe Opera. Between the fanciful costumes (designed by director Laurent Pelly), the magical music, and the fabulous cast (Joyce DiDonato, Alice Coote, and Stephanie Blythe, just to name a few), this is definitely one to see.  The chorus is extremely active in this production (with many choristers making their solo debuts on the Met stage as servants and fairy godmother spirits), and it's safe to say that it's been a long time since we've had this much fun in the staging process of a show! (Let's just say we've all dusted off our dancing shoes and are upping our weekly cardio sessions to prepare...) [Opens April 12th]

Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Roméo et Juliette:  Reprising Bartlett Sher’s acclaimed production from last season, Roméo et Juliette is, of course, based on Shakespeare’s classic tale of tragic love. This gorgeous opera offers passion, jealousy, poison and most importantly, epic sword fights! The cast is absurdly good: Bryan Hymel and Ailyn Pérez are the star-crossed lovers, and Maestro Placido Domingo conducts (just days after finishing his run of Luisa Miller performances! Nothing can stop this man.). [Returns April 23rd]

The 'Te Deum' scene from Tosca. Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.

Tosca: Sir David McVicar's smashing success of a production returns with international superstar Anna Netrebko in the title role. If you missed this production the first time around, then you'd better get your tickets fast, because there are only six more opportunities, and the first two are sold out! The Act I finale (often referred to as the 'Te Deum', pictured above) is worth the price of admission (though being a member of the chorus, I might be a little biased!). [Returns April 21st]

Intrigued? You should be. The clock is ticking! Grab those tickets before it’s too late...

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What Are We Up To? - The March Edition

Photo: Jonathan Tichler/Metropolitan Opera

by Lianne Coble-Dispensa

March, as the saying goes, comes in like a lion… though, for the Metropolitan Opera chorus, orchestra, staff performers, directors, stage managers, and stage crew, it pretty much stays lionesque until the bitter end! We have FOUR new shows opening this month, with one making its triumphant return after a few months off.

Photo: Jonathan Tichler/Metropolitan Opera

Elektra: Set in an unspecified modern setting by the late director Patrice Chereau, Strauss’s stark, psychologically imposing masterpiece unfolds without impediment, allowing the audience to truly experience the staggering beauty of one of Strauss’s densest, most complex operas. Christine Goerke is in her wheelhouse as the grieving, vengeful Elektra, and is supported by a fantastic cast of Elsa van der Heever, Michaela Schuster, Jay Hunter Morris, and Mikhail Petrenko. The orchestra will be at its astounding best under the baton of our incredible new music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin. [Opens March 1st.]

Photo: Martin Smith/English National Opera

Così fan tutte: Possibly the most operatic fun you’ll have all year. Set in Coney Island in the 1950s, the Mozartian tale of the foibles of Venus & Mars, not to mention the presence of actual circus performers (think fire eaters, strongmen, and a lady with a snake), will thoroughly delight you. (And the lucky small group of chorus members- 24 altogether- have the benefit of riding the carnival rides!) The cast is full of young, vibrant Mozart singers: there’s Amanda Majeski, Susanna Malfi, and Adam Platchetka (all three veterans of the Met’s Le Nozze di Figaro production), not to mention Ben Bliss and Christopher Maltman (both veterans of the Met’s The Magic Flute). Kelli O’Hara is taking a break from her successful Broadway career to play the role of Despina, Fiordiligi and Dorabella’s sassy servant. You won’t want to miss this one! [Opens March 15th.]

Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Lucia di Lammermoor: Less fun than Così, but certainly containing far more drama, deceit, and death, Pretty Yende & Olga Peretyatko-Mariotti (most recently seen on the Met stage playing Gilda in Rigoletto) split the demanding, coloratura tour-de-force role of Lucia. Two Met favorites, Vittorio Grigolo and Michael Fabiano, split the role of Edgardo, her doomed lover. Come for the drama, stay for the wedding day murder and the iconic mad scene aria (which contains a challenging, but beautiful, duet between Lucia and the first flutist in the orchestra). [Opens March 22nd]

Luisa Miller: Boy, we’ve got some doozies this month! A rarely-performed Verdi opera, Luisa Miller is similar in plot to Lucia (people in love with other people, but engaged to marry people they don’t love), only in this case, the male lead, Rodrigo, the son of a local lord, is the one secretly in love with another woman (that woman being Luisa, who is the daughter of an old soldier, and not in the same social class as Rodrigo). Spoiler alert: things don’t end well, though this time there’s less blood, and more poison. Nevertheless, the score sparkles, the choral writing is lithe and lyrical, and the duo of Sonya Yoncheva and Piotr Beczala are bound to be impressive. Plus, the unstoppable Placido Domingo graces the stage as Luisa’s father. [Opens March 29th.]

Photo: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

Turandot: If you haven’t gotten enough death and/or dismemberment from Elektra, Lucia, or Luisa Miller, then fret not! Turandot is here to chop the heads off all her hopeful suitors! All except one, that is! Chorus participation is at an all-time high in one of Puccini’s most stunningly written works. The classic Zeffirelli production is an audience favorite. Who can resist applauding the over-the-top opulence when the curtain rises for the 2nd act? The colorful characters, soaring voices, famous arias ("Nessun Dorma", anyone?), and a stage packed to the hilt with singers, actors, and dancers makes Turandot a great choice for anyone looking to attend a Met Opera performance for the first time. [Returns March 21st.]

Hope to see you at one of the shows this month! Click here to get your tickets!

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Lianne Coble-Dispensa joined the Metropolitan Opera as a member of the extra chorus in 2010, and went full time in 2015. She is the Editor-in-Chief for the Met Artists Newsletter, and is a member of the Met Chorus Artists executive board. When she's not singing opera or furiously copy editing this month's newsletter, she enjoys spending the lion's share of her free time cooking various delights in the kitchen, reading non-fiction, Crossfitting, and running (you may see her in this year's NYC Half Marathon). She is married to fellow chorister (and ultramarathoner) Scott Dispensa, and they live in Teaneck, NJ with two ostentatiously-named cats (Maximilien de Robespierre and Charles Hubert Hastings Parry).

Photo: Joshua South Photography