Opera premieres 2025/26

The opening premiere of the 2025/26 season and the start of the new directorship under Matthias Schulz marks «Der Rosenkavalier» by Richard Strauss. Director Lydia Steier stages this profound social comedy based on an aesthetic concept by Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein. Joana Mallwitz, Chief Conductor at the Konzerthaus Berlin, conducts the Zurich Opera Orchestra. Diana Damrau sings the role of the Marschallin.

Argentine director Valentina Carrasco, who was part of the Catalan theater collective La Fura dels Baus, directs the second new production of the season, Verdi's «La forza del destino», marking her debut at the Opera House. Anna Netrebko returns to Zurich as Leonora. Also debuting is Zurich director, set designer, and musician Thom Luz, who takes on his first opera direction with Engelbert Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera «Hänsel und Gretel». For operetta fun, the new production of Johann Strauss' «Die Fledermaus» is directed by the Austrian Anna Bernreitner, with Swiss conductor Lorenzo Viotti. The costumes for the ensemble, including Golda Schultz, Regula Mühlemann, and Marina Viotti, are designed by fashion designer Arthur Arbesser. Swiss author, cabaret artist, and satirist Patti Basler wrote new texts for the piece.

Two Modern Operas by Elfriede Jelinek, Olga Neuwirth, and Paul Hindemith
Olga Neuwirth is the most influential composer of our time. Together with Nobel Prize-winning author Elfriede Jelinek, she has written the music theater piece «Monster’s Paradise». As avatars of themselves, they send two «Vampirettes» on a journey around the world. The highly regarded opera director and new artistic director of the Hamburg State Opera, Tobias Kratzer, presents this brand-new political grotesque for the first time at the Zurich Opera House. Swiss conductor Titus Engel, an expert in contemporary music, leads the performance.

Paul Hindemith's opera «Cardillac» is a milestone in the development of music theater. 100 years after its premiere, Hungarian theater and film director Kornél Mundruczó stages this thriller about obsession, control, and self-alienation, revolving around a jeweler who must kill those who buy jewelry from him. The former General Music Director of the Zurich Opera House, Fabio Luisi, returns to conduct the Zurich Opera Orchestra.

Premieres within the «Zürich Baroque» Festival
The focus of the first festival edition is the premiere of the opera «Scylla et Glaucus» by French composer Jean-Marie Leclair. This extremely rarely performed opera is a musical discovery. It describes all the lust, wildness, panic, and despair that the young woman Scylla experiences when awakened from an emotional winter sleep by Glaucus. Director Claus Guth returns to the Zurich Opera House with this new production. Emmanuelle Haïm conducts her ensemble Le Concert d'Astrée, one of the leading specialized ensembles for early music.

With his opera «Giulio Cesare in Egitto», based on the romance between Cleopatra and Caesar, one of the most famous love affairs in history, Georg Friedrich Handel achieved a sensational success. «Beauty of all kinds in abundance,» his contemporaries praised the composer. In this co-production with the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, director Davide Livermore relocates the plot to a luxurious Nile cruise ship. Cecilia Bartoli sings Cleopatra in one of her signature roles.

With the concert premiere of Georg Friedrich Handel's «Aci, Galatea e Polifemo», the Zurich Opera House presents the composer's charming miniature opera, which contains many pieces later used in his subsequent works. Philippe Jaroussky, a world-renowned countertenor, has also made a name for himself as a conductor and now makes his opera house debut conducting La Scintilla.

Conductor Marc Minkowski and director Damiano Michieletto return to the Zurich Opera House with a new production of Mozart's «La clemenza di Tito». To close the opera season, Icelandic director Thorleifur Örn Arnasson will stage Wagner's «Tannhäuser». Russian conductor Tugan Sokhiev will conduct at the Zurich Opera House for the first time. In addition to Eric Cutler in the title role, the outstanding ensemble includes Christian Gerhaher, Rachael Wilson, Christina Nilsson, and Christof Fischesser.

The concert premiere of Berlioz's «La Damnation de Faust» in Zurich will feature prominent soloists such as Saimir Pirgu and Elīna Garanča.