In break with the past, Met opera is devoting a third of its productions to recent work

By MIKE SILVERMAN
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The Metropolitan Opera is broadening its repertoire this season by performing more recent operas alongside classics like “La Boheme.” This fall the company will stage “Dead Man Walking,” “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” and “Florencia en el Amazonas” — the Met’s first Spanish-language opera in nearly a century. Hoping to rebuild its attendance after the pandemic, the Met is devoting fully one-third of its staged productions to contemporary work, including revivals of two recent hits —Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and Kevin Puts’ “The Hours.” The season opens Sept. 26 with “Dead Man Walking” based on the book by Sister Helen Prejean about counseling inmates on Death Row.