Metropolitan Opera giving first live performances since pandemic closed doors

The Metropolitan Opera will reopen for its first show before a live theater audience since the Met closed last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers announced Wednesday.

In a news release, the Met announced that “A Concert for New York” would be held Sunday featuring soloists conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Knockdown Center in Queens, N.Y.

The concert, which will have two showings Sunday, will feature a wide range of selections ranging from Mozart to “Ave Maria” from “Otello” as well as more contemporary pieces including “Peculiar Grace” from “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.”

“As the city’s largest performing arts company, we are determined to participate in New York’s re-opening, even though there is much still to be settled with our unions and in preparing the opera house for next season,” said Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, in a statement accompanying the release.

Doctors, nurses and other first responders from New York’s Mount Sinai hospital system will be among the first attendees, according to the news release, as a way of thanking them for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit New York hard early on last year.

“With the Met currently unavailable, we’re excited to present this concert at the Knockdown Center,” Gelb continued, adding: “We’re particularly pleased to welcome first responders from Mount Sinai to attend these concerts to thank them for their heroic work in saving lives, and also to thank the hospital for their ongoing medical advice to ensure that the Met reopens safely in the fall.”

The Met closed its doors for in-person performances in March 2020, as live events around the country were largely shuttered due to fears of the spread of COVID-19 in crowds, particularly indoors.

Some 48.8 percent of New York’s total population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, including 60.7 percent of New Yorkers older than 18, according to a state vaccine tracker.