The Met said in June 2016 that Nézet-Séguin would become music director for the 2020-21 season, then moved up the timetable last February.

James Levine started a 40-year reign in 1976 that lasted more than 2,300 performances he was pushed out two years ago following a decade of declining health and fired from his emeritus role last March after allegations of sexual misconduct the Met found to be credible. Rafael Kubelik lasted just six performances as the Met’s first music director in 1973, quitting after clashes over casting. “It has to do with the incredible amount of energy and super-heroic disposition, wrapped in a more compact package,” she said in an email. Some in the Met orchestra have taken to calling the 5-foot-6-inch Montreal native by the affectionate anthropomorphic nickname first bestowed by mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato.

Montrealer Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts his first performance as just the third music director in the Metropolitan Opera’s 135-year-old history when he mounts the podium of the financially challenged company Tuesday night in a new production of Verdi’s La Traviata by Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer. MONTREAL-Mighty Mouse has come to save the Met.

Yannick metropolitan opera