The Metropolitan Opera is turning Halloween night into a costume contest with real stakes: the winner gets intermission access to the Keebler J. Straz Lounge and an exclusive backstage experience that the company has not yet detailed. The celebration runs from 6:30 p.m. at the Mercedes T. Bass Grand Tier Bar at Lincoln Center, wrapping up by 8 p.m. before the evening performance of Missy Mazzoli's new opera, Lincoln in the Bardo.
The party is free for anyone holding a ticket to the October 31 performance, though attendees must register separately for the celebration itself, according to Time Out. Festivities include photo opportunities, specialty cocktails and the costume contest itself, which will be judged by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, costume designer Montana Levi Blanco and C. Graham Berwind III, per the same report.
A Judge Who Also Performs in the Opera
Costanzo is not just judging costumes that night — he also appears in Lincoln in the Bardo, portraying Miss Elise Traynor alongside fellow cast members Christine Goerke and Stephanie Blythe, the outlet notes. He brings institutional weight to the judging table, too: Costanzo was appointed General Director and President of Opera Philadelphia in June 2024, a role he balances alongside his international singing career.
Fellow judge Montana Levi Blanco designed the opera's costumes by repurposing nearly 800 archival pieces pulled from past Metropolitan Opera productions, weaving in textures like moss, mold and decay to depict spirits caught between life and the afterlife, according to Wisevoter. Blanco won a Tony Award in 2022 for The Skin of Our Teeth. The production also features creature suits and original puppet designs from Obie and Drama Desk Award-winning designer James Ortiz, who previously built puppets for the Met's production of El Niño, per the Metropolitan Opera.
The Opera Behind the Party
Lincoln in the Bardo follows Abraham Lincoln, portrayed by Peter Mattei, as he mourns his 11-year-old son Willie in the bardo, a transitional realm between life and the afterlife, Time Out reports. The opera is adapted by composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek from George Saunders's Booker Prize-winning novel, and is directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz. The production runs from October 19 through November 14.
Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts most performances, but conductor Steven Osgood takes the podium specifically for the Halloween night show and the final performance on November 14, according to the Met's season materials. Osgood previously workshopped excerpts of the opera at the Chautauqua Opera Company in 2025. Mazzoli has called the piece the most complex opera she has ever written, and the composer and Vavrek had already collaborated on four operas together — including their acclaimed 2016 stage adaptation of Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves — before making their Met debuts together.
A Milestone Premiere Timed to a National Anniversary
Mazzoli became the first female composer in the Metropolitan Opera's history to present a world-premiere opera on its mainstage when Lincoln in the Bardo opened on October 19, per the Met. The piece was co-commissioned with The Santa Fe Opera and co-produced with the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, with its staging explicitly timed to coincide with nationwide celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. Saunders's 2017 novel, which won the Man Booker Prize, introduced invented supernatural concepts like matterlightblooming to describe spirits vanishing in fireworks when they acknowledge their own deaths, and is set in Georgetown's Oak Hill Cemetery in 1862, as the Associated Press reports.
Building Buzz Before the Curtain
The Halloween party is the latest in a string of efforts to widen the opera's audience ahead of its premiere run. Weeks before opening night, the Met partnered with Death of Classical for a sold-out walking procession through Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery, letting attendees hear live musical excerpts outdoors. Around the same time, New York City launched Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Opera for All program, distributing 70,000 free Metropolitan Opera tickets across the 2026-2027 season through monthly lotteries reserved for residents who haven't bought a Met ticket since 2019 — a lottery that includes access to Lincoln in the Bardo.
Together, the costume contest, the cemetery preview and the free-ticket lottery reflect a deliberate push to pair a landmark contemporary premiere with accessible, festive entry points for newer audiences. Whether the mystery backstage prize lives up to the hype remains to be seen, since the Met has not detailed what the experience actually includes.
