The Tamesis
Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb’s New Year’s countdown to midnight ended charmingly…if only for a few seconds as Vincenzo Bellini’s aria sparkled with vocal precision – the only moment in an otherwise excellent timed production. I am a Puritan.
“I’m always too late and I have to scream 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 at the last second,” Gelb admitted into the microphone at the Metropolitan Opera’s annual New Year’s Eve gala. “But we still have over 30 seconds left, so we’re almost there… any day now… 22 seconds to go!”
The countdown begins at the stroke of midnight, just as the Met kicks off 2026 with a six-hour cultural marathon that kicks off at 6 p.m. I am a puritan. The performance that night lasted until 9:20 pm, with an intermission in the middle. Under the deceptively conventional, voice-first direction of Charles Edwards, the production offers plenty of room for its stars. Lawrence Brownlee’s Arturo performed the night’s most stunning musical feat, breaking into a rare and infamously punishing high F. beat He made it all look effortless, wowing the crowd with a vocal triple-double.
The opera’s emotional center is Lisette Oropesa as Elvira – a bride who refuses to take off her wedding dress for months and descends into utter madness long before Dickens imagined his tragic heroine Miss Havisham. If Miss Havisham is the ghost of romantic despair in literature, then Elvira is her operatic ancestor, who made her debut 26 years ago Great expectations.
But if the stage belongs to the singer, then the room belongs to the divas—and their fashion. Sigourney Weaver and Christine Baranski share the same menswear style: both wear tailored tuxedo jackets, perfectly cut and clean and elegant. Then there’s Renée Fleming, a true diva in a deep burgundy silk dress, a few shades darker than the plush velvet interiors for which the Metropolitan Opera is famous.
