Lincoln in the Bardo Preview
Death of ClassicL and Greenwood Cemetery Magical Partners
By: Susan Hall - Sep 27, 2026
Lincoln in the Bardo, a new opera by Missy Mazzoli, is based on George Saunders’s Booker Prize–winning novel. Previewed at Green-wood Cemetery, the opera will premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on October 19.
Ms. Mazzoli is one of the leading composers of the 21st century. The Galloping Cure—an opera using a carnival carousel as an allegory for addiction—wowed audiences at Edinburgh this summer. Meanwhile, Opera Philadelphia nurtured her acclaimed Breaking the Waves and mounted the American premiere of The Listeners, an opera about music itself.
Based on the preview sketches, Lincoln in the Bardo centers on the texture of language—and what unusual language it is. The central figure, Abraham Lincoln, does not speak; instead, the ghosts of the Bardo inhabit his body and articulate his thoughts.
Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo performs as the ghost of Elise Traynor, who died at age 14 before she could experience romance, marriage, and motherhood. Because she clings desperately to her unfulfilled earthly desires, she remains permanently pinned to the Bardo’s boundary fence by twisting tendrils. Her speech deteriorates into vulgarities as she constantly morphs into terrifying macabre objects—a transformation underscored musically by sharp, disruptive vocal lines.
By contrast, the music for an enslaved man who longs for more than two hours a week to do as he pleases is smooth, poignant, and querulous. Throughout the piece, sonic textures directly reflect the characters' internal states. Tenor Joshua Blue sings Thomas Havens, a slave to a "nice" master. In this cemetery purgatory, Thomas carries a quiet yearning to prove the capabilities of Black people and express a subtle grief. As President Lincoln leaves the cemetery mourning his son Willie, Thomas jumps into the president's consciousness. Inside Lincoln's mind, Thomas resolves to share his own lifelong sorrow and the historical injustices faced by Black Americans, hoping to touch the president's heart and broaden his vision of freedom.
Baritone Andrew Manea gave a fine performance as Abraham Lincoln (a role to be sung by Peter Mattei at the Met), expertly accompanied on the piano by Ksenia Leletkina.
In Saunders’s novel—written effectively as a play—166 characters speak. How this vast cast will translate to the Met stage remains to be seen, but Ms. Mazzoli is a master of orchestration, and her score will surely unify these disparate voices.
Experiencing this preview surrounded by the graves of historical figures like Leonard Bernstein, piano builder Henry Steinway, and Samuel Morse (whose code may well echo beneath the ghostly vocals) added remarkable depth. While staging the full opera inside the cemetery would be a revelation, the Met provides a grand venue for its world premiere.