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Missy Mazzoli’s opera Lincoln in the Bardo is scheduled to premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on October 19, marking the company’s first world premiere of an opera composed by a woman in its 143-year history. Mazzoli says women-fronted punk and rock acts she watched on MTV helped shape her approach to musical theater. The premiere is a milestone, while broader gender representation in opera remains limited.
Missy Mazzoli’s opera Lincoln in the Bardo is scheduled to open at the Metropolitan Opera on October 19, marking the company’s first world premiere of an opera composed by a woman in its 143-year history, according to a Marie Claire report. The opera adapts George Saunders’ novel, with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, and the milestone also reflects Mazzoli’s account of how women in punk and rock helped shape her work.
The opera draws on Saunders’ novel, which imagines Abraham Lincoln visiting the spirit of his deceased son at the boy’s grave. Mazzoli composed the music and Vavrek wrote the libretto. The report describes the October 19 performance as Mazzoli’s seventh opera and the first opera world premiere by a woman composer at the Met.
In an essay published by Marie Claire to coincide with the premiere, Mazzoli traced her early musical influences to music videos she watched on MTV as a child in rural Pennsylvania. She named artists and bands including Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bikini Kill, L7, The Breeders and Sonic Youth, as well as Debbie Harry and Kim Gordon. She said their heightened performances and willingness to take up space helped her see a connection between punk’s theatrical energy and opera.
Mazzoli said she began writing opera in her late 20s, working with Vavrek on Song from the Uproar. She recalled that they initially described it as “a work of music theater,” because she did not feel qualified to use the label opera. The report also notes her three Grammy nominations and her role in launching Luna Composition Lab, a program that mentors emerging female and non-binary composers.
A Milestone Amid Unequal Representation
The Met premiere places a woman composer at the center of a major production at an institution whose history, like opera’s wider tradition, has been strongly associated with male composers. The distinction is specific: the report calls this the Met’s first opera world premiere composed by a woman, not the first time the company has staged any work by a woman.
The source also points to an ongoing representation gap. It says women and non-binary composers account for about 7 percent of composers performed by major orchestras, with the share described as lower in opera. That figure is attributed to the report and refers to major orchestras; it should not be read as a Met-specific statistic. Mazzoli’s premiere is a visible change at one institution, but it does not by itself establish that the broader imbalance has been resolved.
Her account of punk’s influence offers another reason the event may interest readers beyond opera audiences. Mazzoli links a formative popular-music culture to her approach to large-scale stage drama, challenging the idea that opera and contemporary music belong to separate worlds. That is her interpretation of her own artistic path, rather than a claim that punk alone explains the opera’s style or the Met’s decision to stage it.
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From MTV to the Opera Stage
Mazzoli describes her route to composition as gradual: piano lessons and school percussion, high-school punk bands, then chamber and solo works, orchestral music and film scoring. She says MTV, which she watched from roughly 1989 to 1993, introduced her to performers whose music videos treated emotion and performance in an exaggerated, dramatic way. In her view, that approach shared something with opera’s combination of music, staging and heightened feeling.
When Mazzoli and Vavrek wrote their first opera, she said she struggled to picture herself within a form she associated with celebrated male composers. Her account connects that uncertainty to her later effort to write for the stage without apology. She has also worked to support emerging composers through Luna Composition Lab, which the report describes as a mentoring initiative for female and non-binary composers.
The article names four women whose operas had been performed at the Met before this premiere: Ethel Smyth, Kaija Saariaho, Jeanine Tesori and Gabriela Lena Frank. The report says the Met and other organizations have increased their commitment to women creators, while emphasizing that representation remains limited. Those points provide context for the milestone without making it a claim that Mazzoli is the first woman whose work has appeared at the company.
“I’m about to premiere my seventh opera, Lincoln in the Bardo, at the Metropolitan Opera, making me the first woman to have a world premiere at the Met in its 143-year history.”
— Missy Mazzoli, in her essay for Marie Claire
Premiere Details and Wider Impact
The source gives an opening date of October 19 but does not specify the year, performance schedule, production details or whether the date has since changed. It describes the event as upcoming, so the premiere’s current status cannot be verified from the supplied material alone.
The report does not provide a full breakdown of the Met’s past programming or a methodology for the estimate that women and non-binary composers make up about 7 percent of major-orchestra programming. It also does not quantify representation in opera. The long-term effect of this premiere on commissioning and programming remains unknown.
The Met’s October 19 Premiere
The immediate next milestone is the scheduled opening of Lincoln in the Bardo at the Metropolitan Opera. The supplied report does not list later performances, ticket information, critical response or any follow-up commitments by the company.
After the premiere, further evidence of change would include whether the Met and other opera companies commission and stage more works by women and non-binary composers. Mazzoli’s production marks a specific institutional milestone; the source does not establish what programming decisions will follow it.
Key Questions
What is the Met Opera milestone?
According to the Marie Claire report, Lincoln in the Bardo is the first opera world premiere composed by a woman in the Metropolitan Opera’s 143-year history.
Who composed Lincoln in the Bardo?
Missy Mazzoli composed the music, and Royce Vavrek wrote the libretto. The opera adapts George Saunders’ novel.
When is the opera scheduled to open?
The source gives an opening date of October 19, but does not specify the year or provide a current performance schedule.
How did punk influence Mazzoli?
Mazzoli says women-fronted punk and rock acts she watched on MTV shaped her sense of theatrical expression and helped her recognize a connection between music videos and opera.
Does the premiere mean women are now equally represented in opera?
No. The source describes the premiere as a milestone while saying women and non-binary composers remain underrepresented, particularly in opera. It does not provide a specific opera-wide percentage.
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