Audiences Are Returning to the Met Opera, but Not for Everything

Four years after the coronavirus brought the curtain down on the Metropolitan Opera, audiences are nearly back, the company announced on Thursday. But the company’s big bet on contemporary opera this season had mixed results.

The Met, which has been facing serious fiscal challenges, said that the 2023-24 season ended this month with 72 percent paid attendance overall, approaching the 75 percent it had in the last full season before the pandemic.

About a third of this season was devoted to contemporary operas, and those by living composers, as it works to connect with younger and more diverse audiences. Some were hits: Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” drew 78 percent attendance, behind only Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” Bizet’s “Carmen” and Puccini’s “Turandot.”

But two recent operas that had drawn sold-out crowds in previous seasons fared less well when they were revived: Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up In My Bones” drew 65 percent attendance, and Kevin Puts’s “The Hours,” which reunited the stars Renée Fleming, Kelli O’Hara and Joyce DiDonato, drew 61 percent.

Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said the mix of old and new operas was helping drive a recovery at the box office by bringing new people into the opera house. But the company still faces significant obstacles. The Met, whose credit rating was downgraded in February by Moody’s Investors Service, has withdrawn about $70 million in emergency funds from its endowment over the past two seasons to help cover costs.

“We believe we’re on the right path artistically,” he said. “But we’re still climbing out of the hole that the pandemic left us in.”