New Year’s Eve at the Met! Christine Baranski, Sigourney Weaver, and More Enjoy I Puritani

On a night when Vincenzo Bellini’s arias gleamed with vocal precision, Metropolitan Opera General Manager Peter Gelb’s New Year’s countdown to midnight was charmingly off…if only by a few seconds—the only moment in an otherwise brilliantly timed production of I Puritani.

“I'm always too late, and I have to scream out the 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 at the last second,” Gelb admitted into the microphone, grinning out at the crowd at the Metropolitan Opera's annual New Year’s Eve Gala. “But we have more than 30 seconds left, so we’re almost there…any moment now…22 more seconds!”

The countdown unfolded at the stroke of midnight, just after the Met kicked off 2026 with a six-hour cultural marathon that began with a 6 PM curtain of I Puritani. The evening’s performance ran until 9:20 PM, with one intermission. Under Charles Edwards’s deceptively traditional, voice-first direction, the production made generous space for its stars. Lawrence Brownlee as Arturo delivered the night’s most gasp-inducing musical feat, vaulting into the rare and notoriously punishing high F. Not only did Brownlee hit it—he made it seem effortless, a vocal triple-double that left the crowd awe-struck.

At the opera’s emotional center was Lisette Oropesa as Elvira—a bride who refused to remove her wedding dress for months, unraveling into sublime madness long before Dickens ever imagined his tragic heroine, Miss Havisham. If Miss Havisham is literature’s ghost of romantic despair, Elvira is her operatic ancestor, debuting 26 years before Great Expectations.

But if the stage belonged to the singers, the room belonged to divas—and their fashion. Sigourney Weaver and Christine Baranski arrived on the same menswear-inspired wavelength: both in sharply tailored tuxedo jackets, perfectly tailored and cleanly elegant. And then there was Renée Fleming, the true opera diva that she is, swathed in a silk dress of deep burgundy red—a shade a few tones darker than the Met Opera House’s famously plush velvet upholstery.

After the final curtain, the party ascended into its next act: the gala dinner at the Grand Tier Restaurant, located one floor above the lobby inside the Met Opera House, just outside the theater doors, with a glittering view of the Lincoln Center fountain. The tables were dressed in gold-sequined cloths, adding extra glitz to an already sparkling scene. The menu began with duck carpaccio, and as the dessert course landed, waiters emerged carrying trays of noisemakers, 2026 glasses, hats, silver beads, and celebratory spectacles for which guests could festoon themselves.

Gelb returned to the stage about 10 minutes before midnight. He toasted Marco Armiliato, whom he called a “Met stalwart,” and praised the orchestra led by Ben Bowman, the chorus under Donald Palumbo, and the artistic and technical teams powering the opera house. He lauded the cast—“spectacular,” “heroic,” “brilliant”—and wished for a glorious 2026 ahead.

And then, the confetti! The fireworks! The Met’s own balcony-level pyrotechnic burst: 800 rockets, 90 seconds, one mile of blasting wire, 10 pounds of flash powder. A celebration, “all finale, no foreplay,” as Gelb amusingly put it.

Meanwhile, downtown at the very same moment, beneath City Hall’s abandoned 1904 IRT subway station—its Guastavino tile vaults still glowing like a civic cathedral—Zoran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor. Both moments, miles apart but spiritually entwined, reminded New Yorkers that institutions like these aren’t just worth protecting—they’re worth reveling in.