Costume Designer

A coup attempt and his best friend a conspirator – yet Tito would rather relinquish his throne than base his power on fear and terror. "La clemenza di Tito" is a work that poses timeless questions about the use of power, guilt, and forgiveness. Mozart's late opera seria contains some of his most fascinating arias and ensembles. The rising tenor Giovanni Sala sings Tito, while Cecilia Bartoli interprets Sesto, one of her signature roles. The historically informed Orchestra La Scintilla performs under the direction of Gianluca Capuano.

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La clemenza di Tito

Opernhaus Zürich

An attempted coup is uncovered, and his best friend is a conspirator – but Tito would rather renounce his office as ruler than base his power on fear and terror. «La clemenza di Tito» is a work that poses timeless questions about how to deal with power, and about guilt and forgiveness. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s late opera seria contains some of his most beautiful arias and ensembles. Conductor Marc Minkowski returns to Opernhaus Zürich with this new production, as does Italian director Damiano Michieletto.

The clemency of Titus

Zurich Opera House

Alban Berg revolutionised the opera tradition in 1925 with a gripping story that combines drama, murder and social study. The folk opera stars Daniel Schmutzhard (Wozzeck) and Annette Dasch (Marie), together with chief conductor Vassilis Christopoulos on the podium of the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra, explore the expressive sound world of Berg’s masterpiece. After his successful Austrian debut in Graz with Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser and stints in Vienna and Salzburg, director Evgeny Titov returns to Graz Opera with one of the most important operas of the 20th century.

Wozzeck

Oper Graz

Violetta Valery, living in kept splendour at the expense of Baron Douphol, has apparently recovered from a serious illness. To celebrate, she throws a party where she meets and falls for Alfredo Germont. As their love for each other is frowned upon, they set up house outside of Paris. Alfredo’s father insists that she break with his son in order not to jeopardise the marriage prospects of Alfredo’s sister. Violetta accedes to his wish and cuts off relations. In a showdown at another party Violetta tries to convince Alfredo that she’s in love with the Baron, causing Alfredo to hurl his gambling winnings at her feet, calling them “fees for services rendered”. Soon afterwards, at the height of the Paris carnival, Violetta is on her deathbed. She receives Alfredo, who has heard from his father her real reason for leaving him. Violetta forgives him, gives him her blessing and dies.

La traviata

Deutsche Oper Berlin

With stunning natural imagery and attention to every detail, Barrie Kosky presents Tchaikovsky’s soulful drama about the hopes, longings, and failures of four young people who come to realize in the end that happiness was almost within reach.

Eugene Onegin

Schiller Theater

Barrie Kosky affords the “operetta of all operettas” a new look and focuses on its morbid side. The scene is Vienna, city of the golden operetta era, where Die Fledermaus celebrated its world premiere at the Theater an der Wien in 1874. The revenge of the bat becomes a nightmare for Gabriel von Eisenstein and many others. A society, an entire city dances towards the abyss. To take revenge on his friend Eisenstein, Dr Falke, alias the bat, orchestrates a misunderstanding with Prince Orlofsky. A marquis and a chevalier, a countess and budding artists meet here for a raucous party. Glasses clink, relationships are strained, there is loving, lying and dancing. They party ‘til the cows come home, always believing: “Happy are those who forget ...”

Die Fledermaus

Max-Joseph-Platz

In the heart of the desert, three fugitive criminals establish the city of Mahagonny. This ‘paradise city’ has its own rules for living life, fueled by the wealth of men passing through from the Gold Coast. Eating, loving, boxing, and drinking are the order of the day. However, this idyllic utopia soon begins to falter, as natural disasters, excesses, violence, and corruption push the city to its breaking point.

Rise and Fall of the City of Maha­gonny

When the nights are at their longest, frosty wind and snow storms sweep the land, it is the time of the Koliada – of the pagan winter solstice feast and the Christian-orthodox Christmas celebration in equal measure. In these magical “twelve days of Christmas” the barrier between the human world and the realm of dark beings becomes especially thin. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “true” Christmas song, Die Nacht vor Weihnachten, based on the eponymous story by Nikolai Gogol, also plays out in this very same period.

Die Nacht vor Weihnachten

A political drama about a bloody seizure of power, namely the rise and terrible fall of the Scottish military leader Macbeth and his wife, are at the heart of Verdi’s opera, based on Shakespeare’s famous tragedy. Barrie Kosky's production is «an aesthetic milestone in the work’s reception» (NZZ). It radically concentrates on the protagonists’ inner perspective in a ghostly jet-black stage space. Gianandrea Noseda navigates Verdi’s bold score. Roman Burdenko and Ekaterina Semenchuk sing the roles of the couple shattered by fears and madness.

Macbeth

He was touted as the new star in Italy’s operatic firmament around 1910. Publisher Tito Ricordi had big plans for the young Riccardo Zandonai and was sparing no cost to achieve the same triumphs with him as Giulio Ricordi had done a generation earlier with the young Puccini. For a huge fee, Ricordi secured the rights to a scandalous contemporary play - Gabriele D’Annunzio’s 5-act drama “Francesca da Rimini” – which had created a stir with its bloody civil-war scenes, cruel passions and adulterous couple. D’Annunzio’s fin-de-siècle-esque “poem of blood and lust” was all the rage in artist circles. The 31-year-old Riccardo Zandonai spied his chance to pen a florid opera of grandiose scale in a musical language fusing a raft of styles and epochs. And sure enough, Zandonai ploughs his individual European furrow of musical theatre, encompassing Italian bel canto, hints of Renaissance madrigals, gritty verismo, pre-Fascist marches, Wagner’s TRISTAN as a point of reference and a French Impressionism à la Debussy.

Francesca da Rimini

In 1983, a cry of freedom rang out from Broadway to London and Berlin, heralding the triumph of a musical insisting on the right to a brightly coloured life outside of narrow-minded conventionality.

La Cage aux Folles

A young woman who desires her own father and is transformed into a tree. A young man who loves himself so much that he fails to notice the advances of a nymph who ultimately exists only as a voice. A goddess who transforms her rival into a spider because of her flawless weaving skills. A man whose statue of a woman perfect for him comes to life. A legendary singer whose return his beloved awaits in the underworld.

Hotel Metamorphosis

House for Mozart

In 1983, a cry for liberation resounded from Broadway to London and Berlin, heralding the triumph of a musical that demanded the right to a colorful life beyond stingy pettiness.

Georges runs the nightclub "La Cage aux Folles". The absolute star is his partner, the drag queen Zaza alias Albin. Then Jean-Michel, Georges' son from a previous relationship, shows up: he wants to marry Anne, the daughter of an ultra-conservative family, and, to Albin's great disappointment, asks Georges to go alone to the first meeting with the family. Albin is deeply hurt. But he insists on having dinner together in Jacqueline's restaurant...
Jerry Herman created a classic of the musical genre with an empowerment anthem that gave not only the queer scene the strength to fight for more openness and justice. Directed by Barrie Kosky, the piece becomes an ever-valid plea for the courage to stand up for yourself and for each other!

This impactful opera is an experience unlike anything seen before at the Finnish National Opera. In an uprising on a farm, a group of animals overthrow their farmer’s tyrannical reign. Little by little, their new society begins to mirror human civilisation, and their original principles of equality are cast aside.

Animal Farm

Finnish National Opera and Ballet

In 2017, Satyagraha celebrated its acclaimed premiere at the Komische Oper Berlin. Now another work from the opera trilogy by minimal music pioneer Philip Glass is being released, each of which centers on a personality who changed the world: this time it is the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten. The director is Barrie Kosky, who has shown not only with Moses and Aron how powerful and approachable the myth can be in contemporary sounds.

Akhenaten (Akhnaten)

Dramma lirico in four acts by Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924)
Libretto by Domenico Oliva, Luigi Illica and others

Manon Lescaut

Disguises, a decadent party and an awful lot of champagne. With chief conductor Lorenzo Viotti in charge of the music and Barrie Kosky directing, Dutch National Opera will be lighting up the dark December days with ‘Waltz King’ Johann Strauss II’s most popular operetta.

National Opera & Ballet

Transfigurations, a decadent party and lots and lots of champagne. Under the musical direction of chief conductor Lorenzo Viotti and directed by Barrie Kosky, Dutch National Opera presents the most beloved operetta by 'waltz king' Johann Strauss Jr. in the dark days of December.

That Fledermaus

The story about the love between Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, forms the final piece of the so-called  Tudor trilogy by the Italian bel canto composer Gaetano Donizetti .

Roberto Devereux

He commands a world empire and yet he is deeply unsettled. Philip II of Spain not only fears losing command but also feels betrayed and deserted by his wife Elizabeth von Valois: she and his son Carlo are in love. Over all this hangs the threatening shadow of the Inquisition. In vain, King Philip seeks trust in a hostile world.

Don Carlo

Bebelplatz

On a neglected farm, the animals revolt against their tyrannical owner. After some time, however, they are forced to submit to the yoke of a new leader from their own ranks.

Vienna State Opera

Macbeth, army commander in the service of King Duncan, is prophesied by three witches that he himself will become king. But the price is high,and his bloody path of self-destruction soon begins. Urged on by the ambitious Lady Macbeth, he commits murder and treason to secure his power. But his actions catch up with him when he is forced to face off against his adversary Macduff and an insurgent army. The tragedy reaches its climax in a devastating battle that seals Macbeth's downfall and makes Malcolm, the murdered king's son, the new king of Scotland.

"I lived for art, I lived for love." In a dictatorship, the singer Floria Tosca fights for her great love, the painter Cavaradossi. Threatened by the ruthless police chief Baron Scarpia, she sees no other way out than to kill him. However, her love for Cavaradossi remains unfulfilled: contrary to their prior agreement, his execution is not staged, but the bullet strikes him dead. In despair, Tosca throws herself to her death. 

Tosca

City Theatre, Bern

With "Manon Lescaut," Giacomo Puccini established a series of tragic female figures in whom passionate devotion and existential despair are intertwined. In four large, cinematically edited scenes, he depicts the stages of the title character's life: her intoxicating love for the student Des Grieux, a life in luxurious Parisian society, and finally, exile and death in an American desert. Director Barrie Kosky underscores the fleeting nature of this life by presenting the narrative as a continuous, feverish journey: Death is already on the coachman's seat at Manon and Des Grieux's first encounter. Following her acclaimed Tosca, soprano Sonya Yoncheva returns to the Zurich Opera House as Manon.

Isolation and loneliness have become part of our collective experience, especially since the coronavirus pandemic. Violetta, the young courtesan, suffers them on her deathbed, forced by societal demand to reject her lover. Verdi’s only opera set in the bourgeois world of his time demonstrates the hypocrisy of a society that first fawns over a young woman and then abandons her. Götz Friedrich’s production amplifies the emotional impact of Verdi’s music by telling Violetta’s story as a flashback: The premonition of death is present from the beginning, hanging like a shadow over the Parisian party. Thus, a timeless drama with a requiem-like quality unfolds. We eagerly anticipate the Violetta debut of Federica Lombardi, a favourite with audiences at Deutsche Oper Berlin. She will later be succeeded by Martina Russomanno, new in our ensemble. Michele Spotti, the new Principal Guest Conductor, promises a sophisticated musical interpretation.

Costume Designer

Klaus Bruns

Events

Upcoming events

Apr 26 - May 25, 2026

The clemency of Titus · Opernhaus Zürich

Apr 26, 2026 - Mar 21, 2027

La clemenza di Tito · Opernhaus Zürich

Apr 26, 2026 - Mar 21, 2027

La clemenza di Tito · Opernhaus Zürich

5 - 26 Jun, 2026

Don Carlo · Staatsoper Berlin

12 - 23 Jun, 2026

Animal Farm · Wiener Staatsoper

Past events

Apr 26, 2026 - Mar 21, 2027

La clemenza di Tito · Opernhaus Zürich

Apr 26, 2026 - Mar 21, 2027

La clemenza di Tito · Opernhaus Zürich

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