Metropolitan Opera Chorus

The Chorus of the Metropolitan Opera has played a central role in building and sustaining the institution’s reputation as one of the world’s leading opera companies. Its roster of professional singers can be adjusted to suit the vocal requirements that have been essential to opera since the art form began. Thanks to the company’s expanding use of new media, listeners around the globe have encountered the ensemble on numerous recordings and video presentations, among them a pioneering live transmission to cinemas.

New York’s Roosevelt, Morgan, and Vanderbilt families spearheaded the effort that led to the Metropolitan Opera’s founding in 1883 as a company of international stature. The venture succeeded immediately, and both the orchestra and chorus have remained essential to its artistic goals. Auguste Vianesi served as the first music director; a distinguished sequence of successors has included Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, and James Levine. The position of chorus master has likewise been occupied by notable figures, most prominently Kurt Adler, who held the post—and, for part of his tenure, the additional title of principal conductor—from 1943 to 1973.

Technological innovation has accompanied the Metropolitan Opera almost from its earliest years. Between 1901 and 1903 the company produced roughly 140 recordings on phonograph cylinders known as the Mapleson Cylinders. Broadcasting began in 1910 with transmissions that reached only a limited local audience; by the 1930s, however, major networks were carrying live performances nationwide, a role later assumed by the company’s own Metropolitan Opera Radio Network. Television experiments followed in the 1940s, when performances were sent to homes and occasional presentations reached movie theaters. These practices have since expanded, and in the early 2020s the Met offers high-definition live relays to cinemas, televised recordings, its own streaming radio service, and an extensive catalog of acclaimed discs. Yannick Nézet-Séguin has been music director since 2018, while Donald Palumbo has served as chorus master since 2023.