Entertainment

Missy Mazzoli Makes Met Opera Debut With 'Lincoln in the Bardo'

The New York Times · September 18, 2026

Key takeaways

Missy Mazzoli's Met Opera debut adapts George Saunders' novel 'Lincoln in the Bardo,' about Abraham Lincoln grieving his son in a ghostly graveyard limbo.
The production is notable for putting a living, boundary-pushing American composer — and a woman — on the Met's main stage, a rare occurrence historically.
Expect an atmospheric, texturally complex score that mirrors the novel's fragmented, multi-voice structure rather than a traditional narrative opera.

A New Voice Arrives at the Met

Missy Mazzoli is finally getting her Metropolitan Opera moment, and she's doing it with one of the most ambitious literary adaptations in recent memory. Her new opera, "Lincoln in the Bardo," based on George Saunders' Booker Prize-winning novel, marks her debut on the Met's storied stage — a milestone that's been a long time coming for one of American opera's most inventive contemporary composers.

If you know Mazzoli's work — "Breaking the Waves," "Proving Up," "Song From the Uproar" — you know she doesn't do safe or predictable. She writes music that's emotionally raw, texturally strange, and unafraid of silence. That makes her a fascinating match for Saunders' source material, which is anything but a conventional narrative.

Why 'Lincoln in the Bardo' Is a Wild Choice for Opera

Saunders' 2017 novel imagines Abraham Lincoln visiting the graveyard where his young son Willie has just been buried, only to find the cemetery populated by ghosts stuck in the "bardo" — a Tibetan Buddhist concept for the liminal space between death and whatever comes next. The book is told through a chorus of spectral voices, historical fragments, and fractured perspectives. On paper, that's a nightmare to stage. In practice, it's exactly the kind of structural puzzle that composers like Mazzoli thrive on, since opera is already built around overlapping voices and non-linear emotional time.

Why This Debut Matters

The Met doesn't hand out debuts lightly, especially to living composers, and especially not to women — historically, new works by women at the Met have been rare, even as the company has made a visible push in recent seasons to change that. Mazzoli's arrival adds her to a short but growing list of women who've had their operas produced on that stage, alongside contemporaries like Jeanine Tesori. It's a signal that the Met is serious about expanding whose stories, and whose musical voices, get the grandest platform in American opera.

For longtime opera fans, this is also a chance to see how a distinctly 21st-century compositional voice handles the Met's massive scale — a house built for Verdi and Puccini now hosting a score inspired by grief, ghosts, and a president processing unimaginable loss.

What to Watch For

Expect a production that leans into atmosphere over spectacle: shifting choral textures standing in for the novel's chorus of voices, and a score that likely resists easy melody in favor of mood and tension. If you're new to Mazzoli, this is a strong entry point — and if you're a Saunders fan skeptical about an opera adaptation, this might be the production that changes your mind about what opera can do with unconventional storytelling.

Why it matters

This debut is a bellwether for how far the Met Opera is willing to push into contemporary, experimental territory — and whose voices get that spotlight. If you care about opera's future or love a bold literary adaptation, this is a premiere worth tracking.