The Year the Metropolitan Opera Declared War on the Critics

Alex Ross argues that Peter Gelb’s 2024 campaign against critics — framed as a defense of accessible, melodic opera — is historically inaccurate, artistically limiting, and ultimately self-defeating.

Key Takeaways

• The Met staged five contemporary works in 2024: John Adams’s El Niño, Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Kevin Puts’s The Hours, Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar — a historically high count for an institution that once ran entire seasons without a living composer.
• Gelb published a November 2024 New York Times op-ed arguing that opera “turned inward” in the late 20th century with “experimental, sometimes atonal compositions” that alienated audiences, and that critics pushed this undigestible fare. He positions Puccini-style melodic opera as the only viable path.
• Gelb publicly grumbled at a fundraising event about Times chief critic Zachary Woolfe’s negative review of Grounded, claiming critics resent opera that appeals to large audiences.
• Ross systematically dismantles Gelb’s history: postwar American opera (1950–1990) was dominated by accessible, melodic works (Menotti, Barber, Bernstein, Floyd, et al.) — not the experimental desert Gelb describes. Gelb’s claim of a “decades-long melodic drought” shows “basic indifference to opera history.”
• Gelb’s dismissal of Ligeti (Le Grand Macabre) as a marginal oddity ignores that Ligeti’s music reached millions via 2001: A Space Odyssey and that the opera is a European staple performed in Prague, Munich, and Palermo in 2024 alone.
• Ross notes this is not new behavior: Gelb attempted the same suppression of Opera News in 2012 (see article-crack-up-at-the-met).

Relevance to Met

This is a direct window into the ideological tensions inside the institution right now. Gelb’s public framing — accessible vs. experimental, audience vs. critics — has real implications for programming decisions, staff culture, and how the Met positions itself in the broader field. Ross’s counterpoint (that the 2024 season itself disproves Gelb’s thesis) is useful ammunition for anyone internally arguing for adventurous programming. The fundraiser anecdote also suggests Gelb’s critic-bashing is not just op-ed posturing but something being said to donors, which could shape board expectations.

Questions Raised

• How did the Met’s board respond to Gelb’s public campaign? Did donors align with his populist framing?
• Is there an internal tension at the Met between the programming team (which produced five contemporary works in 2024) and Gelb’s public messaging (which undercuts those works by suggesting experimental = bad)?
• What is Zachary Woolfe’s broader relationship with the Met — does the Times review ban pattern from 2012 have any echo in how the Met now handles press access or invitations?
• How does the Met’s contemporary programming compare to peer institutions (LA Phil, San Francisco Opera, Opera Philadelphia) — is Gelb’s defensive posture driven by genuine audience data or board pressure?