When Sting’s musical “The Last Ship” came to Broadway 11 years ago, it closed after just four months and lost $15 million. It was something of a flop, despite its association with one of the world’s most famous pop musicians.
But “The Last Ship” is coming back to New York for nine nights next June, Sting announced Wednesday. This time, a few things will be different: It has a new book, new sets, a few new Sting songs and a new director. (Joe Mantello has been replaced by Leo Warner.) And Sting, who only appeared for a short period during the Broadway run, will now play a leading role at every performance.
One more thing will be different: The revival, which opens June 9, will be staged not on Broadway, but at the Metropolitan Opera House.
For Sting, 74, this is a chance to play in one of New York’s most storied halls for a second time, and to break a barrier in the process. The Met has staged musical revues and pop acts in the past; the Who played the rock opera “Tommy” there in 1970, and Sting played two shows there with the Royal Philharmonic in 2010. But the opera house has never given its stage over to a Broadway show, according to Met officials.
In an interview, Sting said that he had been inspired to consider the Met for this revival of “The Last Ship” because of an opera he attended there years ago: a staging of Benjamin Britten’s “Billy Budd” by John Dexter, with whom he had collaborated on a production of “The Threepenny Opera” in 1989.
“They re-created on that stage an entire British man-of-war, at least a cross section of a whole British man-of-war with a full crew, the officers, the sailors,” Sting said in a video interview from his home on Central Park South, which has a view of Lincoln Center. “And it just struck me, if I’m going to do my play, the ship, I want it to be that big.”
This revival is the latest example of the Met looking for new sources of revenue at a time of financial distress. In September, the Met announced that it had reached an agreement with Saudi Arabia to perform there three weeks a year, notwithstanding the Saudi regime’s troubled record on human rights, a deal that is expected to bring the Met $100 million. Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said that “The Last Ship” would provide a financial boost but declined to provide specific numbers.
“To have Sting on the stage of the Met is very significant for us,” said Gelb, who was in the house as a 17-year-old usher when the Who played there. “He’s created a new version of this musical with new songs. And he’s firmly cast himself as one of its stars.”
“The Last Ship” is about a shipbuilding town in northeastern Britain in decline, based on Sting’s experience growing up in what he described as the “rather surreal industrial environment” of Wallsend. When the show first appeared on Broadway, Sting’s music won praise from the New York Times critic Charles Isherwood, who called it a “a seductive score that ranks among the best composed by a rock or pop figure for Broadway.” But the show as a whole, he wrote, “often feels dramatically landlocked — like a ship without a crew.” (That is the last nautical allusion in this article.)
Sting, by his account, took that criticism to heart. “I admit that I’m a novice here,” he said. “All of these experiences are learning experiences, and so I was grateful for constructive criticism.”
The Met often rents out its theater during its off months. This season ends on June 6 with an evening performance of “Turandot.” Then “The Last Ship” will move in, followed by American Ballet Theater after it closes.
The limited space on the Met’s calendar makes it an ideal venue for shows that don’t want to make the commitment for a long run that most Broadway theaters would request. Sting is taking a break from a tour promoting his new album to present “The Last Ship” in Paris, Amsterdam and in Brisbane, Australia.
The Met — with just over 3,800 seats, a huge stage and backstage area, and soaring ceilings — is built for opera. This show will be amplified and will have the backing of a 50-member chorus, as well as a small orchestra.
Commercially, “The Last Ship” has had a rocky history. In 2014, its producers, alarmed over anemic ticket sales at the Neil Simon Theater on Broadway, recruited Sting to perform in the show. Box office grosses nearly doubled but dropped again after his scheduled time there came to an end.
In this revival, Sting is playing the shipyard foreman, Jackie White. Shaggy, the reggae musician and his longtime collaborator, co-stars as the ferryman. The production includes 48 artists and features such familiar Sting songs as “Island of Souls,” “All This Time” and “When We Dance.”
Gelb said he was receptive to opening the Met to productions other than opera. “We’d be really happy if it was the right Broadway show,” he said. “I was dying to have the Met present ‘West Side Story’ here.”
But most Broadway rights holders, he added, don’t want short runs at the Met. Still, in this moment of financial difficulty, almost anything is up for consideration. Asked if he would open the Met stage to, say, the Abba jukebox musical “Mamma Mia!,” Gelb paused for just a moment.
“I wouldn’t say no to Abba,” he said.
Adam Nagourney is a Times reporter covering cultural, government and political stories in New York and California.
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