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The Los Angeles Opera dropped a contemplated world premiere for the second straight season in a cost-cutting move, and Missy Mazzoli’s “Lincoln in the Bardo” will instead open at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.
Adapted from George Saunders’ 2017 novel and with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, “Lincoln” was to debut in Los Angeles in February 2026, Saunders said last October. But it was not included when the LA Opera announced its 2025-26 season on Tuesday,
“With rising expenses, it’s harder for us to manage the manifestation of all of our potential dreams,” LA Opera president Christopher Koelsch said. “It’s a wonderful project and I think it will be very impactful when it gets to the Met. What Missy and Royce have done in adapting something that is essentially unadaptable is really miraculous, a very beautiful and very moving piece.”
Saunders’ novel, about the death of President Abraham Lincoln’s son William Wallace Lincoln, takes place between life and rebirth.
Mason Bates’ “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” was to have premiered in LA last October but was left off the schedule and instead given a test run with a student cast at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in November. It is planned to open the Met’s 2025-26 season on Sept. 21.
The Met announced it 2018 it had commissioned “Lincoln” and by 2023 said the work would be seen first in LA. It will now debut in October 2026 at the Met.
Koelsch, managing his company’s return following the coronavirus pandemic, said he had never fully committed to “Lincoln” and decided last fall LA couldn’t afford it. Revenue was $46.8 million in 2023-24, up from $40.8 million in 2022-23 but down from $47.1 million in 2021-22.
“Expense and income ratios for the next season were coming more into focus,” he said.
Met general manager Peter Gelb said an additional workshop of “Lincoln” will be scheduled to make up for the loss of the LA dates. It will be the Met’s 32nd world premiere.
LA Opera's 2025 productions
James Conlon will conduct three of LA’s five main stage productions at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in his final season as music director, ending a 20-year run. He leads Francesca Zambello’s staging of Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” first seen at the Houston Grand Opera in 2018, to open the season on Sept. 20. Conlon then conducts a revival of Lee Blakeley’s 2013 staging of Verdi’s “Falstaff” starting April 18, 2026, and Barrie Kosky’s 2012 staging of Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” from Berlin’s Komische Oper opening May 30. The season also includes revivals of Herbert Ross’ 1993 staging of Puccini’s “La Bohème” and Philip Glass’ “Akhnaten” in a Phelim McDermott production first seen at the English National Opera in 2016.
“A victory lap for James,” Koelsch said. “He has been music director for over half of the organization’s history. The musical priorities of the company and its musical maturity and the sound of the orchestra and chorus are a creation of his expertise and imagination.”
The five main-stage productions match 2024-25, down from six in the prior two seasons and a high of 10 in 2006-07.
LA will present two world premieres at smaller venues: Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “Hildegard,” based the writings of Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen, at The Wallis in Beverly Hills from Nov. 5-9, and Carla Lucero’s “The Tower of Babel,” a new community opera that Conlon will conduct at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on May 8 and 9.
Koelsch hopes to hire Conlon’s successor ahead of the 2026-27 season.
