A procession through the grounds of Green-Wood Cemetery will give Brooklyn a first glimpse of the Metropolitan Opera's newest production nearly a month before it opens on the company's main stage. The immersive preview, scheduled for Friday, September 25, sends attendees on a walk through the cemetery grounds past musicians, dancers and actors performing musical excerpts from Lincoln in the Bardo, the opera based on George Saunders's Booker Prize-winning novel. The event is already sold out, though organizers are offering a waitlist for hopeful last-minute attendees.
The evening is a joint production of Death of Classical, the site-specific concert series known for staging classical performances inside crypts and graveyards, working alongside Green-Wood Cemetery and the Metropolitan Opera, according to Time Out. The September 25 date also opens Death of Classical's 10th anniversary season and follows an earlier collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera on Gabriela Lena Frank's opera El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, according to Death of Classical. A second New York preview is planned for October 15 at Trinity Church and Cemetery in Lower Manhattan, per the organization's announcement.
A Story of Grief Set Against the Civil War
Lincoln in the Bardo is set during the Civil War and follows President Abraham Lincoln as he visits the grave of his son, Willie, whose spirit remains trapped in the bardo — a realm between life and death, per the Time Out report. The narrative draws on real history: Willie Lincoln died of typhoid fever at the White House on February 20, 1862, and was temporarily placed in the Carroll family vault at Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, where Lincoln reportedly visited the mausoleum and opened the casket, according to The Washington Post.
The opera adapts Saunders's 2017 novel, which won the Man Booker Prize and made him only the second American writer to receive the honor before he went on to win the 2025 National Book Foundation Medal, as Hoodline previously reported. The novel is centered on restless spirits, and the opera brings that story to an immersive cemetery setting.
Composer and Librettist Take the Stage in Brooklyn
Preview attendees will hear from the creative team directly: the event includes a conversation with composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek, moderated by Amanda Petrusich, according to the Time Out account.
Mazzoli's connection to the opera's themes of mortality runs deeper than her résumé suggests. Mazzoli is a certified death doula, according to Musical America. That background lends personal weight to a work built around a father's grief.
The Met Premiere
Lincoln in the Bardo is scheduled to open at the Metropolitan Opera on October 19, according to Musical America's reporting.
The Met production features stars from the upcoming production, according to Bachtrack. The Green-Wood preview will feature stars from that upcoming production performing amid the cemetery's mausoleums and pathways, per Time Out.
What to Expect on the Cemetery Grounds
Green-Wood Cemetery also serves as a cultural venue, including for Death of Classical performances. Green-Wood Cemetery also serves as a public gathering space.
Attendees will gather at Green-Wood Cemetery for the September 25 preview. With the event already sold out, the waitlist remains the only path in for those hoping to see the opera's stars performing among the graves before the curtain rises at Lincoln Center next month.
