Sawt Falasteen - Met Opera's 2023-24 season dominated by the contemporary

It's part of the 143-year-old New York institution's push to diversify its audiences that traditionally have skewed elderly and white.

As it continues climbing back following the havoc the early pandemic wrought on live performance, the Met was forced to take out $23 million from its endowment, according to a report by The New York Times, and cut its total number of performances by 10 percent.

But despite the challenges the company has found resounding success recently with a number of operas by living composers, including "The Hours" and "Fire Shut Up In My Bones."

Both of those productions will return in 2023-24.

The season kicks off in September with "Dead Man Walking," a crime drama based on the book of the same name that also inspired an Academy Award-nominated film.

And the Met's staging of "X" -- which opens there November 3 -- will see Robert O'Hara, the Tony-nominated director of the acclaimed "Slave Play," debut at the operahouse as he oversees the production.

As it expands its repertoire it's still giving plenty of space to its classics, including Bizet's "Carmen" and Verdi's "La Forza del Destino."

Speaking to AFP last year, the Met's General Manager Peter Gelb called the storied institution's audience "eclectic," and said that the Met must continue to push artistic boundaries even if some old-timers prefer tradition.

"For the art form to survive we have to break new ground," he said. "Art is about change."

L.Hussein--SF-PST