The Mahler Man

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is set to take on his most ambitious Met season yet, at the helm of a pair of new productions and three eagerly anticipated revivals—not to mention a star-studded gala celebrating the company’s 60th anniversary at Lincoln Center. And to top it all off, he also leads a full cycle of Mahler symphonies that brings together three world-renowned orchestras in a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall. By Christopher Browner 

“I fell in love with Mahler’s music when I was very, very young,” says Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who traces his lifelong affinity for the composer’s work back to a record store in his native Montreal. “One of the very first recordings I ever bought was Mahler’s Second Symphony, the ‘Resurrection.’ It made the most incredible impression, and I felt I had to discover all of his symphonies right away. I just immediately became an avid Mahlerian.” In 2001, Nézet-Séguin had his first experience conducting the composer’s work, when he inaugurated his second season as artistic director and principal conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain with the Second Symphony—a performance that took on added significance as it fell just days after the tragedies of September 11. In the years since, his Mahler fever has shown no signs of abating, culminating this season in a momentous cycle of all nine of the composer’s complete symphonies.

Of course, the cycle isn’t the only major undertaking on the horizon for the indefatigable maestro. He is also set to lead the Opening Night premiere of the new production of Verdi’s Macbeth, followed by the high-profile world premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s Lincoln in the Bardo and the returns of classic Met stagings of Puccini’s Tosca, Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, and Wagner’s Parsifal. But if Nézet-Séguin is at all daunted by the busy season ahead, he doesn’t let on. “At the Met, we love every season that we present for our audience, but I can assure you that this one is going to be one of my favorite seasons ever,” he declares. Add to that the chance to immerse himself in the works of one of his musical idols, and he says only one word can describe the artistic adventure that lies ahead: epic.

From October through June, Nézet-Séguin will take the podium at both Carnegie Hall and the Met to lead performances with the Vienna Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra—where he’s served as music director since 2012—and Met Orchestra, alongside such special guests as Elīna Garanča, Elza van den Heever, Erin Morley, and Will Liverman, among others. He pairs his February 27 performance of Mahler’s Fourth with the Vienna Philharmonic with arguably the greatest warm-up act in history, as the electrifying Yuja Wang joins him for Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. “It’s one of the great honors of my life to be asked to conduct a cycle with these three fabulous orchestras. And it feels especially fitting given that Mahler had such close ties to both New York and Vienna,” he says. “I have enjoyed a great relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic for many years, and I am also very excited to collaborate with my two American ensembles and all my dear colleagues here.”

Since becoming the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director in 2018, Nézet-Séguin has maintained a consistent diet of Mahler, not only leading the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies with the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and on tour throughout Asia and Europe but also collaborating with some of today’s most accomplished artists in performances of his vocal music. And when it came time to present a concert to mark the company’s emergence from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, he would again turn to the piece that started it all for him, the Second Symphony, a particularly apt choice given the work’s subtitle. As part of this season’s cycle, Nézet- Séguin will conduct the Met Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 at Carnegie Hall on June 18, preceded by performances of Symphony No. 8—colloquially known as the “Symphony of a Thousand”—at home at the Met June 10–12, marking the first time the company has presented the all-consuming masterpiece.

Nézet-Séguin says he especially savors performing Mahler’s music with the Met Orchestra given the composer’s own personal connection to the operatic repertoire. Also a sought-after conductor, he led nearly 650 performances as director of the Vienna Court Opera and appeared for three notable seasons at the “old Met” in the early 20th century. “Even though he never composed an opera himself, he had a very dramatic and theatrical approach to his music. I feel like when I conduct a Mahler symphony with the Met Orchestra, I can really talk to them in terms of characters and different contrasts in dramatic meanings, and that makes their interpretations especially lively,” Nézet-Séguin explains.

And he considers the Eighth Symphony in particular a piece “built for the Met.” Requiring herculean musical forces, even by Mahler’s standards, the score calls for an orchestra of more than a hundred instruments—including a pipe organ—as well as a double chorus, children’s chorus, and eight vocal soloists. It’s a work few institutions can pull off, but Nézet-Séguin is unfazed, saying that “with our incomparable orchestra, incomparable chorus, our children’s chorus—which is unparalleled in the opera world—and the access we have to the greatest voices of our time, I just can’t believe it’s taken so long for us to perform this piece.”