June 02--Yannick Nezet-Seguin has been named the next music director of the Metropolitan Opera, effective with the 2020-21 season. The highly regarded Canadian conductor, 41, will become only the third music director in the company's history. He will succeed James Levine, 72, who stepped down last month because of health reasons, after 40 years in that position.
Nezet-Seguin will continue as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which announced Thursday that he has extended his contract through the 2025-26 season. Plans are for that the orchestra and the Met to explore possibilities for artistic collaboration between the two institutions.
Nezet-Seguin's Met contract calls for him to conduct five different operas each season he is music director, along with concerts with the Met Orchestra. He is to assume the interim title of music director designate in the Met's 2017-18 season, conducing two operas each season in which he holds that position. Next season he will lead his first Wagner opera with the company, "The Flying Dutchman."
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