New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
New York's Metropolitan Opera Orchestra dates back as an established ensemble almost to the Metropolitan Opera's founding in the 1880s. The orchestra has been led by legendary conductors of the 20th and 21st centuries, including Arturo Toscanini, George Szell, and James Levine.
New York upper-crust families launched an effort to establish a world-class opera company in 1880, and the Metropolitan Opera was launched with the 1883-1884 season. August Vianesia was the music director but was soon replaced in 1886 by Anton Seidl, a protégé of Wagner who molded the orchestra into a first-class group along German lines before departing in 1897. Other important early conductors included Alfred Hertz, Gustav Mahler (1908-1910), and Toscanini, who headed the orchestra from 1908 to 1915. Orchestra members by the 1930s earned starting salaries of some $10,000, less than the superstar singers the company engaged but more than what most other orchestras paid, and ever since then, a seat in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra has been a plum assignment for orchestral musicians.
Through the middle of the 20th century and beyond, the Metropolitan Opera was led by European-born conductors who were also prominent in the field of orchestral music, including Szell, Bruno Walter (1941-1951), Fritz Reiner, Erich Leinsdorf, and Dmitri Mitropoulos. The company pioneered operatic broadcasts on radio (from 1930) and television (from 1940), which arguably increased the prominence of the orchestra since audiences experienced no visual component; broadcasts, now including those via the Internet, have remained important to the Met's mission. Doubtless, the most significant of the orchestra's more recent conductors has been James Levine, whose career ended under a cloud but who shaped bold interpretations, many of them in part orchestrally based, for decades. Levine was succeeded by Fabio Luisi and by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director since 2018. The orchestra has issued several recordings independent of operatic productions, including one of Wagner's orchestral music and, in 2022, A Concert for Ukraine.
© James Manheim /TiVo
Discography
13 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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La Walkyrie
Lauritz Melchior, Helen Traubel, New York Metropolitan Opera Chorus, New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf
Full Operas - Released by Naxos on Dec. 4, 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Traviata (La) (Metropolitan Opera) (1949)
Eleanor Steber, Giuseppe Di Stefano, New York Metropolitan Opera Chorus, New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Giuseppe Antonicelli
Full Operas - Released by Naxos on Nov. 12, 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Die Walküre (Live)
Classical - Released by Walhall Eternity Series on Feb. 1, 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: Le trouvère, extraits (Mono Version)
New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on Jan. 1, 1957
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90 (Recorded 1960)
Opera - Released by Walhall Eternity Series on Feb. 1, 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
VERDI : La Traviata (Tibbett / Jagel / Ponselle)
Frederic Jagel, Rosa Ponselle, Lawrence Tibbett, New York Metropolitan Opera Chorus, New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Ettore Panizza
Opera - Released by Naxos on Nov. 2, 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
WAGNER, R.: Rheingold (Das) (Ring Cycle 1) (Schorr / Maison / Habich) (1937)
Eduard Habich, René Maison, Friedrich Schorr, New York Metropolitan Opera Chorus, New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Artur Bodanzky
Opera - Released by Naxos on Mar. 1, 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Charpentier: Louise (Live)
Opera - Released by Naxos on Jul. 3, 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
HANSON : Merry Mount (Tibbett, Swarthout) (1934)
Gota Ljungberg, Gladys Swarthout, Lawrence Tibbett, New York Metropolitan Opera Chorus, New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Tullio Serafin
Opera - Released by Naxos on Nov. 20, 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Flotow: Martha (Recorded 1961)
New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra
Classical - Released by Walhall Eternity Series on Jul. 1, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: La traviata (Live)
Classical - Released by Walhall Eternity Series on Feb. 25, 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
MUSSORGSKY: Boris Godunov (Pinza / Thorborg / Warren)
Ezio Pinza, New York Metropolitan Opera Chorus, New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Ettore Panizza
Opera - Released by Naxos on Mar. 1, 1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo