Performances are given in the evening Monday through Saturday with a matinée on Saturday. The operas are presented in a rotating repertory schedule, with up to seven performances of four different works staged each week.

Until 2019, it presented about 27 different operas each year from late September through May. The Metropolitan Opera is the largest classical music organization in North America. It moved to the new Lincoln Center location in 1966. The Met was founded in 1883 as an alternative to the previously established Academy of Music opera house, and debuted the same year in a new building on 39th and Broadway (now known as the 'Old Met').

As of 2018, the company's current music director is Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager. The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met ) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Metropolitan opera tickets