Protestors storm Carmen stage, bringing Met Opera production to a halt

24 November 2025, 13:22

The New York Met Opera performance stopped for 15 minutes, while the protestors were heckled by an angry audience.

Protesters brought a performance of Carmen to a stop last Friday at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. At least one protestor managed to get on stage during Act 1 of Bizet’s classic.

Three demonstrators were removed from the concert hall and later arrested.

Witnesses said the protestors were denouncing billionaire climate-change denier David Koch, the significant arts benefactor who gave his name to the hall next to the opera house. Koch died in 2019.

The performance stopped for 15 minutes, while the angry audience responded to the protestors, before restarting.

The New York Times reports that a Met spokesperson had heard some protestors talking about Project 25, the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s policy plans. “We don’t have all the information about what the protesters were protesting yet,” Jen Luzzo, Met press director told the New York Times. “It’s still a little hazy.”

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This production of Carrie Cracknell’s revived Carmen debuted at the end of October and runs until the end of January. It’s set in a run-down American industrial town, outside an arms factory and stars Isabel Leonard, Michael Fabiano, Matthew Polenzani and Aigul Akhmetshina.

The Metropolitan Opera have not yet provided comment.

It’s not the first time and won’t be the last a production has been interrupted by protestors.

Back in 2023, Stop Oil protestors halted a Poulenc opera in Glyndebourne, setting off confetti bombs and, more recently, a Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Proms performance at London’s Albert Hall was interrupted by pro-Palestinian protestors.