Met officials were forced to bring down the curtain halfway through the opera as protesters unfurled banners that read “No Opera On A Dead Planet.” The performance later resumed.
The work, by the Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets and the American playwright George Brant, is inspired by the accounts of mothers whose children were taken during the war.
“Grounded,” a new work about the psychological toll of drone warfare, drew scrutiny after its presenter, Washington National Opera, advertised the support of a major military contractor.
The company cut ties with the star Russian soprano for her refusal to denounce Vladimir Putin after the invasion of Ukraine. An arbitrator said it must pay her under the terms of her contract.