How Does MetLiveArts Commission a New Work?

Each new commission in the MetLiveArts season has an incredibly complex birth. The creative planning takes months, and often years. Even before I begin a conversation with an artist about a commission, we usually spend many hours walking through The Met, getting to know the collection and each other. Establishing that collaborative relationship is key, as the resources and inspiration are bountiful, but flexibility is essential; I'm always reminding them to bring their metaphoric yoga pants because one needs to be super flexible when creating a performance for The Met's galleries. I will also often say to an artist, "Are you OK working with God as your lighting designer?" (So many of our galleries are encased in glass, which makes the lighting impossible to control.)

Over the past few seasons, we've presented over a dozen commissions and world premieres. Each one has been vastly different, and the process from initial spark to final curtain has been equally distinct. Some pieces were commissioned for our beloved, but fairly standard, 1950s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, while others were designed specifically for a particular gallery. Some involve choreography and a "cast of thousands," while others involve a single performer.

One unforgettable commission was La Dolce Morte. This monodrama (an opera for a single singer and ensemble) began with the composer Suzanne Farrin deciding to translate Michelangelo's visceral and wrenching love poetry from Italian to English. It was at this point, before she actually began to set the poetry to music, that she told me about this idea. I had just arrived at The Met as the General Manager of Concerts and Lectures, and I proposed that she should let me know if she decided to set these poems to music. A couple of years went by, and eventually, last March, we presented the piece in the Vélez Blanco Patio with the stellar countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and the renowned International Contemporary Ensemble to standing-room-only audiences and great critical accolades.

There are several highly anticipated commissions included in the 2016–17 season of MetLiveArts, including Nate DiMeo's The Memory Palace podcasts; Al-Quds: Jerusalem by Mohammed Fairouz; Max and Alan, a new cabaret evening by Alan Cumming; and The Museum Workout by Monica Bill Barnes & Company.

So how does a Met commission come into being? There really isn't one answer because each project takes its own unique route. The two things they all share is a starting point and an end goal, which is always to create a work of art that is unique to The Met, that relates in profound ways to the collection and galleries, and that requires the Museum's unique repository of ideas, people, and objects. The common starting point is always the same as well: it all starts with a walk through the galleries.

The Museum Workout is a good example of that initial walk, which I did with Monica Bill Barnes about two and a half years ago, a period of time in which several ideas came and went as the project took shape and meaning. The result is completely unprecedented: The Museum Workout invites 13 people at a time to participate in a dance performance that will irrevocably change the participants' relationship to The Met's galleries. This piece was conceived during, and as a result of, multiple walks in the Museum. There were the walks I did with Monica, the ones she took by herself, the ones she took with her frequent collaborator Ira Glass, and the one that ended up being the generative one—with Maira Kalman, with whom she collaborated on this radical and entertaining piece.

Nate DiMeo's commission (and residency) emerged from a series of very long phone conversations. Since he's based in Los Angeles, I was not able to use my usual ploy of letting the Museum's galleries do the work; I had to work twice as hard until Nate came to New York and we were able to do the walk together. Luckily Nate already had a deep relationship with The Met, specifically with The American Wing. It's remarkable how many performers credit The Met as a generative force in their work. I've found this to be the case, over and over, when engaging with artists, no matter their medium. (Side note: In a conversation a few years ago with the theater director Julie Taymor, she told me she could trace each one of her productions to a specific gallery at The Met.)

That first conversation with Nate was the toughest: I cold-called him, and I got the sense he'd heard it all before. He was reserved, listening but not giving much indication of what he was thinking or feeling. We spoke for 45 minutes, maybe even longer, and then at the end he said something like: "This is the call I've been waiting for since I started The Memory Palace." Since then, Nate has had multiple conversations with many curators, and he is well on his way to crafting the podcasts that will tell the stories of The American Wing.

Al-Quds: Jerusalem, Mohammed Fairouz's new composition that will premiere in conjunction with the exhibition Jerusalem 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven, came into being through two years of ongoing conversations between the composer and the exhibition's two curators, Barbara Drake Boehm and Melanie Holcomb. They spent countless hours discussing the objects that would be included in the exhibition, and, more importantly, the ideas embedded in those objects and the fascinating new narrative that the exhibition will offer. Mohammed is setting new poetry by Naomi Shihab inspired by the tenets of the exhibition, and together they will create a musical composition that is an extension of the exhibition.

The story of Max and Alan, Alan Cumming's performance commission, which will take as its starting point the artist Max Beckmann's time here in New York City, would make an amazing theater piece in and of itself. While I can't divulge the details of its origins, let me just say that the process of doing the research for the creation of the piece was as entertaining and instructive as I expect the final performance to be this December.

Creating a new performance for MetLiveArts is labor-intensive, and requires both time and a collaborative spirit. At best, it not only changes the relationship between the visitors and the Museum, but it allows the artist to work differently, expand their practice, create something in collaboration with the Museum's curators or collection or both, and, if it all works—and there are no guarantees in commissions—it is an experience through which we're all enriched.

To purchase tickets to any upcoming MetLiveArts event, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets; call 212-570-3949; or stop by the Great Hall Box Office, open Monday–Saturday, 11 am–3:30 pm.