Met Opera skips this season, 1st Black composer opens ’21-22

(Photo: Professorcornbread, CC BY-SA)

NEW YORK (AP) — The Metropolitan Opera will skip an entire season for the first time in its nearly 140-year history and intends to return from the pandemic layoff next September. It will be with the company’s first presentation of a Black composer, Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” This season was to have started on Monday this week, but the company announced June 1 it had pushed back opening night until Dec. 31. In all, 218 performances of 23 operas were lost, raising total cancellations to 276 since the 2019-20 season was cut short by the novel coronavirus on March 12.

Ronald Blum for the Associated Press