Yannick Nézet-Séguin has just been named as the new Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, New York. The Canadian conductor will take up the post in the 2020/21 season, and take on the title of Music Director Designate from the 2017/18 season during which he will conduct his first Wagner opera with the company, a revival of Der Fliegende Holländer.

The Metropolitan Opera is one of the world’s most prestigious opera houses, and Nézet-Séguin’s appointment to it reinforces his status as one of his generation’s most significant conductors. 

He will hold the post in tandem with his music directorship of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which has today also announced an extension of his contract through to the 2025/6 season. Meanwhile, he will remain Principal Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic until the end of the 2017/18 season. 

(Video: Nézet-Séguin conducts a dress rehearsal of Verdi's Otello at the Met in 2015)

Nézet-Séguin describes the Met post as a ‘fulfilling a lifelong dream’, adding that ‘I am truly honoured and humbled to succeed the legendary James Levine as leader of what I believe is the greatest opera company in the world.'

Of the Philadelphia Orchestra extension, he said ‘I now embrace with great joy and eagerness the chance to deepen my connection with this sensationally musical city and to share the music-making, both in the concert hall and the wider community, for at least a further decade – I have so many ideas!’

He signed off his statement: ‘I am the luckiest MD on earth today.’