22/23 Season

In April 2022 the Opernhaus Zürich will undertake a new Ring des Nibelungen by Richard Wagner, starting with Das Rheingold. The upcoming 22/23 season will continue work on the tetralogy, with new productions of Die Walküre and Siegfried. The final part of this epic myth, Götterdämmerung, will premiere at the start of the 23/24 season.

Andreas Homoki and Gianandrea Noseda continue forging their Ring interpretation. The two middle operas promise encounters with Brünnhilde and Siegfried, two of the central characters of the Ring. The pair will be played by Camilla Nylund and Klaus Florian Vogt; both are singing the roles for the first time.

Richard Wagner’s connection to Zurich runs far deeper than is generally known. He lived here for nine years, longer than in any other city. His years in Zurich were creatively the densest and most productive in his life. While here, he conducted, produced treatises on art, wrote poems, and composed music dramas – the foremost of which is his Gesamtkunstwerk Ring. It was here, in 1853, over the space of four evenings, that Wagner presented his just-finished libretto for the Ring des Nibelungen. And it was here that he presented the first public performance of an excerpt of his Ring cycle: at the Hotel Baur au Lac, in 1856, the strains of the first act of Die Walküre rang out. Franz Liszt played piano and Richard Wagner himself sang the roles of Siegmund and Hunding.

The Swiss premiere of Lessons in Love and Violence by English composer George Benjamin brings one of today’s leading composers to Zurich for the first time. Benjamin’s first musical work for the stage, Written on Skin, was an international success, as was this, his most recent opera.

Directing for the stage – and likewise making his debut in Zurich – is Russian drama and opera director Evgeny Titov, who has caused a sensation in recent years from the Salzburg Festival to the Komische Oper Berlin. Meanwhile, Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov, an expert in contemporary scores, takes the conductor’s podium, and the highly touted Trinidadian-born soprano Jeanine De Bique also makes her first appearance at the Opernhaus Zürich.

Lessons in Love and Violence was a commission from the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, the Teatro Real Madrid, the National Opera Amsterdam, the Staatsoper Hamburg, the Opéra National de Lyon, and the Royal Opera Covent Garden. It made its world premiere in London in 2018. The source material stems a Shakespeare’s contemporary Christopher Marlowe, entitled Edward II. At the center of the dark drama is the power-weary King Edward, who neglects the business of his government and his people in favor of a perverted love of art and a homoerotic relationship with his favorite, Gaveston.

The Opernhaus Zürich will continue to cultivate programmatic themes in the 22/23 season, including its focus on Baroque repertoire. December 2022 sees Francesco Cavalli’s Eliogabalo, a rarely performed opera, in a production by Calixto Bieito. Yuriy Mynenko, one of the most internationally sought-after countertenors today, will make his debut at the Opernhaus Zürich singing the title role. The Orchestra La Scintilla is led by Dmitry Sinkovsky.

Cavalli, a colleague and student of Monteverdi, wrote the opera in 1667 for Venice’s Carnival season. But it was never presented; its world premiere took place some 300 years later, in 1999, in the city of Crema. The story is about the egocentric, power-hungry politician Eliogabalo, or Heliogabalus as he’s known in English, a 14-year old Roman emperor, who terrorizes those around him with his megalomania, sexual excesses, and unscrupulous abuses of power. In his production, Bieito explore the question of what masculinity means today.

Another questionable leader is the focus of Friedrich Handel’s opera Serse (Xerxes). The young Swiss director Nina Russi brings this irony and ambiguity of this fantastical and unconventional work to the Theater Winterthur in May 2023. Siena Licht Miller will bow the title role, supported on stage by the singers of the International Opera Studio, under the musical direction of Greek Baroque specialist Markellos Chryssicos.

This premiere of Christoph Marthaler’s production of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice took place without an audience as a livestream in February of last year. At long last, the production will welcome audiences to experience it live and in person. Nadezhda Karyazina (Orphée), Chiara Skerath (Eurydice), and Alice Duport-Percier (Amour), as well as typical Marthaler performers, will bring this wonderfully whimsical production to life. As with the premiere run, the opera is presented in the version by Berlioz, and is musically led by Baroque violinist Stefano Montanari.

Latvian soprano Inga Kalna, who is equally at home in bel canto repertoire as she is in virtuosic Baroque repertoire, will take on the challenge of portraying Elisabetta I in our new production of Roberto Devereux in February 2023. Just as vocally demanding of its interpreter is the title role of Roberto Devereux, which will be sung here by tenor Stephen Costello. Both roles count as some of the most difficult in the bel canto repertoire. French mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d’Oustrac returns to Zurich to sing Duchess Sara. Following up on his productions of «Anna Bolena» and Maria Stuarda, American director David Alden returns with Roberto Devereux, completing the Opernhaus Zürich’s Donizetti trilogy. As with the first two operas, bel canto specialist Enrique Mazzola will conduct from the podium of the Philharmonia.

The operetta world brings another Swiss premiere next season. Only few years ago, a work by Offenbach long thought to be lost to history was discovered in an archive belonging to the composer’s descendants in France. Initial performances in Strasbourg saw it praised as one of his best. Absolutely everything in this opéra comique called Barkouf is about a dog, who was appointed «ruler of all rulers» by the Great Mogul of Lahore. Barkouf’s former owner Maïma, a young flower vendor, thinks she’s lost her dog, but finds him sitting on the throne, and is appointed translator for the new head of state. Appearing as Maïma is American Brenda Rae, herself no stranger to Zurich audiences. The production for this Offenbach discovery lies in the hands of German director, actor, and multi-talent Max Hopp. French conductor Jérémie Rhorer will guide the evening’s musical progression.

Our numerous revivals also promise audiences today’s prominent voices. The star-studded line-up for the revival of Robert Carsen’s Tosca in December 2022 will feature Jonas Kaufmann, Bryn Terfel and Sondra Radvanovsky as Puccini’s fatal love triangle. General Music Director Gianandrea Noseda will conduct.

Anja Harteros, one of the most sought-after Verdi interpreters of our time, returns to Zurich as Leonora in Il trovatore. Her partner on stage is Stefano La Colla, who recently sang Manrico at the Staatsoper Berlin to great acclaim. His adversary Count Luna is the accomplished Verdi baritone Artur Ruciński. Azucena, the opera’s true main figure and the focus of director Adele Thomas’ visually stunning production, is played by Russian mezzo-soprano Yulia Matochkina.

Cecilia Bartoli’s dazzling Rossini interpretations have remained a benchmark of her close association with the Opernhaus Zürich. A signature role of «La Bartoli» is Angelina, the protagonist of Rossini’s La Cenerentola, which returns in March 2023. Gianandrea Noseda presents his Russian skills in the revival of Barrie Kosky’s interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Jewgeni Onegin. Anita Hartig will give her role debut as romantic dreamer Tatjana. Baritone Igor Golovatenko will embody the tragic lover Onegin. Benjamin Bernheim, whose meteoric rise to operatic fame began in Zurich, is the hot-headed Lenski. And Verdi’s Nabucco promises thorny family conflict with Lucio Gallo and Anna Pirozzi. The revival of Gounod’s most successful opera, Faust, sees tenor Saimir Pirgu making another title-role debut, following up on his successful first appearance as Offenbach’s Hoffmann. Soprano Anita Hartig will bow as Marguerite. The revival of Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de perles brings back internationally celebrated Mexican tenor Javier Camarena, who takes on the role of Nadir. Soprano Ekaterina Bakanova, whom Opernhaus Zürich audiences will remember as Antonia in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, will sing Leïla.

The 22/23 season will be an artistic caesura for the Ballett Zürich: Ballet director Christian Spuck is entering his final season. His successor, Cathy Marston, will present her first new premiere. The four premieres and four revivals will showcase a total of 14 works, including five world premieres.

Three generations of choreographers and three distinct artistic styles will be united for On the Move, which is set to premiere in January. After eleven years as Ballet Director, Christian Spuck bids farewell with a final choreography. Louis Stiens returns to Zurich with a new piece set to music by Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy. And with Hans van Manen’s On the Move, the Ballett Zürich adds another masterpiece by this Dutch choreographer to its repertoire.

In April, Cathy Marston will present one of her most successful pieces to Zurich audiences. The Cellist was debuted by the Royal Ballet in London in 2020, where it was a rousing success. It was inspired by the biography of cellist Jacqueline du Pré. The designated Ballet Director and principal choreographer bares the creative soul of this exceptional artist.

The season will open in September with Spanish choreographer Marcos Morau’s Nachtträume, marking his debut with the Ballett Zürich. Morau’s works are full of unforgettable images of photographic intensity, combined with a vocabulary of movement that is rapid, filigreed, and full of wit.

The Junior Ballett’s biennial productions, which began in 2012, have become an enthusiastically received tradition for Zurich audiences. This October, Vittoria Girelli, Samantha Lynch and Shaked Heller will collaborate with the Junior Ballett for the first time with Horizonte. All three are still active as dancers, but have been successfully pursuing choreography for several years.

Christian Spuck’s celebrated version of Nussknacker und Mausekönig for the Ballett Zürich takes an innocuous Christmas ballet and turns it into a poetical, fantastical story, which can be seen again starting in November.

Choreographies by Crystal Pite and Marco Goecke come together for our production of Angels’ Atlas. For headline work, Canadian Pite explores the connection between light and dance. The three-part evening opens with her Emergence, a work overwhelming in its collective force. Marco Goeck’s Almost Blue provides an exciting contrast.

Christian Spuck’s ballet adaption of Anna Karenina not only has the title figure as its central focus, but also looks at the lives of the other main figures from the novel. Zurich’s Ballet Director translated the fate of the heroes of Tolstoy’s novel into haunting choreographic images, set to symphonic and chamber music by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Witold Lutosławski.

In May, music from the most important Italian composer of the 17th century once again takes to the stage for Monteverdi. Ballet Director Christian Spuck doesn’t just look for a story that encompass Claudio Monteverdi’s music, but seeks to draw energy from the power of fragmented and danced abstraction.

The 22/23 season brings Zurich’s two great orchestras together. The Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and the Philharmonia Zürich, along with their music directors Gianandrea Noseda and Paavo Järvi, have cultivated a friendship that will now bloom on the concert stage. This collaboration will take place over two seasons and will see Noseda and Järvi swap podiums and orchestras. They will mark Sergei Rachmaninoff’s 150th birthday with a Rachmaninoff cycle. Rachmaninoff regularly composed at his villa on Switzerland’s Lake Lucerne starting in 1930, and the focus of this collaboration are his monumental piano concerti. The soloists in this cycle include internationally acclaimed stars such as Yuja Wang and Yefim Bronfman.

Wolfgang Rihm is one of the most important artists of the present day, and he’ll celebrate his 70th birthday in 2022. To mark the occasion, the Opernhaus Zürich and the Zürcher Kammerorchester will present an homage to this German composer and charismatic thinker about music. At the center of a series of events in November and December is a new production of Wolfgang Rihm’s chamber opera Jakob Lenz.

The production is led by Swiss director Mélanie Huber, and is musically directed by Adrian Kelly. The run of performances, featuring Yannick Debus as Lenz will take place in the ZKO-Haus. This homage to Rihm continues in the Tonhalle Zürich with the Zürcher Kammerorchester under the baton of its Music Director Daniel Hope, at the Opernhaus Zürich with General Music Director Gianandrea Noseda and soprano Mojca Erdmann, along with the Opernhaus’ own new music ensemble «Opera Nova», and with the composer himself.

Continuing after the Deutsches Requiem and the first Piano Concerto with Daniil Trifonov under the musical direction of Gianandrea Noseda last year, the 22/23 philharmonic season brings Johannes Brahms’ first two symphonies. Each is combined with other works: on brings Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Lars Vogt as soloist, the other presents Aria/Ariadne, Wolfgang Rihm’s setting of Nietzsche, which is a part of the Opernhaus Zürich’s homage to Rihm.

Two philharmonic concerts extend Romantic repertoire into the 20th century. Internationally celebrated violist Nils Mönkemeyer will play Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Viola and Orchestra under the musical direction of Simone Young, who pairs the concerto with works by Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. Robert Pickup, the Philharmonia Zürich’s solo clarinetist, will be featured in Aaron Copland’s Clarinet concerto. Works by Leonard Bernstein and Jean Sibelius round out that program, which is musically directed by Japanese conductor Yutaka Sado.

The Opernhaus Zürich’s in-house ensemble for historically informed performance practice, the Orchestra La Scintilla, continues its examination of the 19th century with its new Artistic Director Riccardo Minasi, including interpretations of works by Brahms and Antonín Dvořák. But important works of the Baroque period will also be featured this season: Johann Sebastian Bach’s four orchestral suites will be heard, led by Riccardo Minasi. Trevor Pinnock, a pioneer of historical performance practice, will conduct Georg Friedrich Handel's Water Music.

Song recitals with stars such as Juan Diego Flórez, Asmik Grigorian, Olga Peretyatko, Javier Camarena, Stéphanie d'Oustrac, Sabine Devieilhe, Aleksandra Kurzak, Roberto Alagna, and Mauro Peter will also play a prominent role in our 22/23 season.

In addition to workshops, courses, school-break programs offered by the opera and ballet, as well as music theater on the Studiobühne for children, Opernhaus Jung will present the world premiere of the fairy-tale opera Alice im Wunderland im November 2022. This commissioned opera by Pierangelo Valtinoni, in a production led by Nadja Loschky, is designed for children 7 years of age and older.

The 22/23 season brings Die Schule tanzt, a new, on-going, high-profile project by Opernhaus Jung. In cooperation with the «Im Birch» secondary school in Zurich-Oerlikon, dance will become a regular, mandatory part of the curriculum for the upper grade levels. Set to take place over a period of three academic years, the young people start off in the first phase by encountering dance in a wide variety of forms as they learn about different styles and works, building up a deeper physical understanding. In the final phase, they work with professional choreographers from to prepare a public performance. There is no comparable dance project like this one in Switzerland, in which pupils from families from a variety of backgrounds can be reached. The pilot project will be accompanied and evaluated by the Zentrum für Schulentwicklung der Pädagogischen Hochschule Zürich (Center for School Development of the Zurich University of Teacher Education), as they study the modes of action and the conditions needed for sustained cultural engagement.

Last but not least, the Opernhaus Zürich celebrates the start of the new season with a grand opening. In line with tradition, the doors of the theater will be thrown open on 10 September. Opernhaus employees will present various workshops, offer musical and danced previews of what they’re working on, and give visitors a peek behind the scenes on stage.

With the Bal masqué à l’opéra on March 11, 2023, the Opera House, under the patronage of the Friends of Zurich Opera, will celebrate a grand costume ball and glittering night of dancing. The Opernhaus’ costuming department might have just the right disguise to let you roam through the night unrecognized: Night owls can transform into a goddesses, villains, or anything in between.

And oper für alle returns at the end of the season! The Opernhaus Zürich will present a live broadcast on the Sechseläutenplatz on 17 June. On the steps of the Opernhaus, Donizetti’s colorful comedy Don Pasquale will be presented, with Julie Fuchs and Johannes Martin Kränzle in the lead roles. Some 10,000 visitors will celebrate summer as they take in the story of a nubile old miser, a beautiful-but-clever bride, and three quick-witted schemers, from folding chairs and beanbags.