- Klopp to return as head of Red Bull football operations
- Hezbollah strikes Israel, says it foiled Israeli incursions
- Jurgen Klopp to return as head of Red Bull football operations
- Sinner to face Medvedev in Shanghai Masters quarter-finals
- US weighs Google breakup in landmark trial
- Record-breaking Root guides England to 232-2 in reply to Pakistan's 556
- Japan PM dissolves parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- Chinese stocks tumble on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- 7-Eleven owner confirms new takeover offer from Couche-Tard
- Goodbye Tito? Tomb at risk as Serbs argue over Yugoslav legacy
- Restoration experts piece together silent Sherlock Holmes mystery
- Sinner avoids Shanghai deja vu with assured Shelton win
- Pyongyang to 'permanently' shut border with South Korea
- Trumpet star Marsalis says jazz creates 'balance' in divided world
- No children left on Greece's famed but emptying island
- Nepali becomes youngest to climb world's 8,000m peaks
- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
Met Opera's 2023-24 season dominated by the contemporary
The prestigious Metropolitan Opera will escalate its turn towards newer productions in its coming season, including with a staging of "X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X."
It's part of the 143-year-old New York institution's push to diversify its audiences that traditionally have skewed elderly and white.
As it continues climbing back following the havoc the early pandemic wrought on live performance, the Met was forced to take out $23 million from its endowment, according to a report by The New York Times, and cut its total number of performances by 10 percent.
But despite the challenges the company has found resounding success recently with a number of operas by living composers, including "The Hours" and "Fire Shut Up In My Bones."
Both of those productions will return in 2023-24.
The season kicks off in September with "Dead Man Walking," a crime drama based on the book of the same name that also inspired an Academy Award-nominated film.
And the Met's staging of "X" -- which opens there November 3 -- will see Robert O'Hara, the Tony-nominated director of the acclaimed "Slave Play," debut at the operahouse as he oversees the production.
As it expands its repertoire it's still giving plenty of space to its classics, including Bizet's "Carmen" and Verdi's "La Forza del Destino."
Speaking to AFP last year, the Met's General Manager Peter Gelb called the storied institution's audience "eclectic," and said that the Met must continue to push artistic boundaries even if some old-timers prefer tradition.
"For the art form to survive we have to break new ground," he said. "Art is about change."
M.A.Colin--AMWN