Spanish conductor Ramón Tebar makes Metropolitan Opera debut with La bohème (Sep 25–Oct 31)
Ramón Tebar (photo: courtesy of the conductor)
(September 2026) — Spanish conductor Ramón Tebar makes his Metropolitan Opera debut this fall, when he leads all 13 of the company’s September and October performances of Puccini’s La bohème, starring Operalia competition winner Juliana Grigoryan and Richard Tucker Award laureate Stephen Costello in a revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s classic staging (Sep 25–Oct 31). Serving concurrently as Principal Conductor & Artistic Director of Florida’s Opera Naples and Artistic Director of Spain’s Arantzazu Festival, Tebar previously helmed La bohème last year at San Francisco Opera, where the “delicacy, intimacy and complexity of his conducting” (Opera Today) helped create “sheer magic” (San Francisco Classical Voice).
Looking ahead to his Met debut, Tebar reflects:
“The Met has been home to so many legendary conductors and artists who have shaped the history of opera, and to have the opportunity to conduct there, following in the footsteps of so many great musicians, is both an immense honor and a tremendous responsibility. It also carries a very special meaning for me as a Hispanic conductor. I am proud to bring my background, my musical journey, and my voice to one of the most important opera houses in the world. La bohème is a work of extraordinary humanity – full of love, youth, friendship, dreams, and loss – and my greatest wish is to serve Puccini’s music and the artists around me with honesty, passion, and freedom. I approach this debut with enormous gratitude and excitement, mindful of how far this journey has taken me since I first arrived in the United States in 2005.”
The conductor has previously led productions of Puccini’s masterpiece at companies including the Vienna State Opera, Hamburg Opera, Opera Naples, and Florida Grand Opera. Of his success last year at the San Francisco Opera, Seen and Heard International reported:
“Major credit goes to the supple, expressive conducting by Ramón Tebar, who fashioned a memorable Elixir of Love here in 2023. Most especially, the orchestra’s surefooted handling of the score. Every phrase emerged with a sort of inevitability, and the intensity rose and ebbed without fussiness.”
Opera Today agreed:
“The big news of this 2025 La bohème was the conducting of Spanish maestro Ramón Tebar. Beyond eliciting unusual sweetness and delicacy of tone from the San Francisco Opera orchestra, he offered broad musical rhetoric through his manipulation of the flow of Puccini’s phrases. The delicacy, intimacy and complexity of his conducting renewed an appreciation of the brilliance of this opera. It was the conductor’s show, richly musical, of exquisitely refined emotions.”
As the San Francisco Classical Voice concluded, the production was:
“A bang. As close to musical and dramatic perfection as you can get. Tebar’s flexible, generous conducting gave this sophisticated score, cohesion and tremendous momentum. Add in the magnificent playing of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, and the evening was sheer magic.”
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Beyond New York, Tebar’s fall and winter highlights include his Stuttgart State Opera and Teatro La Fenice debuts and returns to Italy’s Macerata Opera Festival and the Calgary Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, Colorado Symphony, and Copenhagen Philharmonic orchestras.
About Ramón Tebar
Spanish conductor Ramón Tebar is Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of Florida’s Opera Naples and Artistic Director of Spain’s Arantzazu Festival. He previously held positions as Music Director and Artistic Director of both Spain’s Orquesta de Valencia and Miami’s Florida Grand Opera, as well as serving as Principal Guest Conductor of Valencia’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia.
In high demand at opera houses around the world, Tebar has led productions of operas by Beethoven, Bellini, Bernstein, Bizet, Donizetti, Mascagni, Massenet, Menotti, Mozart, Piazzolla, Puccini, Rossini, Saint-Saëns, Verdi, and many more, for companies including the Cincinnati Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Frankfurt Opera, Hamburg Opera, Hong Kong Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, and Vienna State Opera, where he is a regular guest. After making his San Francisco Opera debut with “consistently buoyant and singer-friendly conducting” (San Francisco Classical Voice) in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, he was immediately invited back for La bohème.
Conducting repertoire ranging from Vivaldi and Bach to John Adams and Anna Clyne, by way of Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler, Tebar is similarly sought-after in the concert hall. As well as maintaining a close relationship with the Spanish National Orchestra, he leads such major ensembles as the Barcelona Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Madrid Symphony, Munich Radio Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, St. Petersburg Symphony, and London’s Philharmonia. Past highlights include season-opening concerts with Lang Lang and the Calgary Philharmonic; Joseph Calleja’s 25th-anniversary concert in Malta, for an audience of more than 10,000; a collaboration with Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires; and special performances of Verdi’s Requiem, both at last year’s Cincinnati May Festival, and with Joseph Calleja, Sondra Radvanovsky, Christian van Horn, and the Malta Philharmonic, in a concert that aired on Classic FM.
The conductor’s discography includes a Verdi collection on Decca, featuring Calleja, Gheorghiu, and Spain’s Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana; a collaboration with Gregory Kunde and Spain’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra for Universal; Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater on CD and DVD for Phono Classical; and Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco, captured live at the Verdi Festival in Parma, Italy, released on DVD by Unitel Classica. He also leads Spain’s Orquestra Simfónica del Vallés in multiple episodes of This Is Art, a two-season documentary series produced for Spanish television in collaboration with the BBC.
Born in Valencia, Spain, Tebar first drew national notice when he won the Spanish National Youth Orchestra’s conducting competition. Becoming, as noted by President Obama, the “first Spanish conductor to be appointed Artistic and Music director of an American opera company,” he has since been recognized with honors including Florida Grand Opera’s Henry C. Clark Conductor of the Year Award, in both 2010 and 2013. He received the Cross of Officer of the Order of Civil Merit from King Felipe VI of Spain in 2015.
Ramón Tebar: Metropolitan Opera debut
Sep 25, 27; Oct 1, 3, 7, 9, 10, 15, 16, 22, 24, 28, & 31
New York, NY
Metropolitan Opera (debut)
PUCCINI: La bohème