Singer

From the very start of Puccini's wintry La Bohème, the orchestra is transformed into an oversized fireplace: a flickering fiery scherzo full of orchestral colors that warms the freezing bohemians. We’ll be hearing the latter in a top-class cast – including Carolina López Moreno as Mimì and star tenor Benjamin Bernheim as Rodolfo. The production will feature music director Marco Armiliato, a globally sought-after maestro who is engaged at the Met, La Scala, and the Wiener Staatsoper.

EPSG:4326

Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

On 29 July and 1 August 2026, the Salzburg Festival, the world’s most prestigious opera festival, will welcome the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director Alain Altinoglu for two concert performances of Jules Massenet’s Werther. They will share the stage of the Großes Festspielhaus with a star cast led by Benjamin Bernheim (Werther), Marianne Crebassa (Charlotte) and Sandra Hamaoui (Sophie), along with the Salzburg Festival and Theatre Children’s Choir.

The La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival

Great Festival House

It was his involvement with musical theater, music education, and his turn to historical music that led Carl Orff to his "archaic" compositional style. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he looked back and led the audience of Carmina Burana into a world of medieval songs from the 11th to 13th centuries, in which people were not afraid to attack the church and society and to praise sensual and depraved life. The evocative power of the rhythm in the music, the extraordinary use of instruments, and the declamatory vocal style have lost none of their gripping urgency to this day.

Carmina burana

Gewandhaus

For Figaro and Susanna, it was supposed to be the most beautiful day of their lives: their wedding day. But their employer, Count Almaviva, who is equally in love with Susanna, does everything he can to delay the wedding. Twenty-four turbulent hours begin, in which the power of Eros throws every character in the play into confusing emotional states. Director Jan Philipp Gloger sets Mozart’s masterpiece in the present day, highlighting the way a supposedly irresistible man gets ensnared in a complex code of conduct designed to prevent abuse of power and sexual assault.

The Marriage of Figaro

Zurich Opera House

French tenor Benjamin Bernheim literally dazzled Prague during his first performance on 19th November 2024. He didn't even sing any opera hits, but fragile, lyrical, intimate compositions by French masters of the song repertoire! „It was an Encounter with Perfection," wrote a reviewer on the KlasikaPlus website. Benjamin received a standing ovation! It also seems that it was an instant mutual love; during the encores, Benjamin Bernheim addressed the enthusiastic audience by saying that this concert was the beginning of a promising relationship between him and the Czech audience – a relationship that will certainly develop further in the coming years. Naturally, such a publicly stated promise cannot remain unanswered. So, here comes a new date! In a year, in November 2025, Benjamin will return to Prague, this time with the French-American soprano and his life partner Sandra Hamaoui.

Opera gala – L’amour. Benjamin Bernheim & Sandra Hamaoui

Smetana Hall Municipal House

The Carmina Burana with its mighty Fortuna choirs is one of the most famous musical works, but is rarely performed as a trittico teatrale with its two sister works. Carl Orff created a trilogy that searches for new forms of expression for music theater: between opera, oratorio and cantata. Trionfi stands for the fascination of the primal elements of theater, the popular and cultic, ancient and medieval poetry and again and again: the elemental power of rhythm. Life and its earthly pleasures are triumphantly celebrated, the omnipotence of Eros, the awakening of spring. Love and fidelity are negotiated and a wedding ceremony is performed, culminating in an orgiastic cry. - As the subtitle of Carmina Burana, which speaks of magical images, suggests, there are no limits to the imagination of a scenic realization. Archaic and modern meet.

Trionfi

Staatsoper Hamburg

In the heart of Hamburg: a warm late summer night, hustle and bustle, conviviality and brilliant sounds in the open air - chief conductor Kent Nagano, the Philharmonic State Orchestra and the Hamburg State Opera have once again brought a special gift to their loyal audience this year. With powerful choirs, rousing rhythms and beautiful melodies: with Carl Orff's cantata "Carmina Burana", the orchestra, together with the choir of the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Boys' Choir, are bringing one of the most popular musical creations ever to the Rathausmarkt. "O Fortuna, your moods change like the image of the moon," is how the opening chorus first addresses the goddess of fate, before moving on in several stages through the different stages of human life. The wheel of fate rolls relentlessly between joy and sorrow, love and consolation, telling of the autumn of one's own existence and yet offering the decisive hope: that a new spring will come - O, Fortuna!

Rathausmarkt Open Air

Magda leaves her wealthy patron when she meets the young Ruggero. But the feeling of first love cannot be relived. Puccini's "La rondine" (The Swallow), commissioned by Vienna's Carl Theater, is an unusual blend of opera and operetta that puzzled critics: some found it too heavy, others too light. Despite several revisions to the ending, Puccini considered his "problem child" a gem that remains rarely performed to this day. Christof Loy directs this work as an impressive rediscovery. Marco Armiliato conducts.

La rondine

Opernhaus Zürich

Charlotte also develops feelings for him, but has to reject him. She has promised her dying mother that she will marry her fiancé Albert. Werther cannot accept his fate and confesses his love for Charlotte again after her marriage to Albert. The growing affection between the two culminates in a tragic end: Werther takes his own life and Charlotte can only confess her love in the face of the dying man.

Werther

Vienna State Opera

“Werther has caused more suicides than the world’s most beautiful woman,” wrote Madame de Staël. Indeed, Goethe’s first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774, was a literary and aesthetic shock for an entire generation, foreshadowing Romanticism.

Soprano

Sandra Hamaoui

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 24 - Oct 15, 2026

La rondine · Opernhaus Zürich

4 - 13 Jan, 2027

Werther · Wiener Staatsoper

Feb 11 - Mar 12, 2027

Werther · Opéra national de Paris

Feb 11 - Mar 12, 2027

Werther · Opéra national de Paris

Past events

Aug 23, 2026

Giacomo Puccini: La Bohème · Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

Jul 29 - Aug 1, 2026

The La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival · La Monnaie / De Munt

Future and recently performed repertoire

Singer in Carmina Burana by Orff

MDR-Sinfonieorchester

Singer in Prélude à L'après-midi d'un faune by Debussy

Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg

Lisette in La rondine by Puccini

Opernhaus Zürich

Musetta in La bohème by Puccini

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

Sophie in Werther by Massenet

Wiener Staatsoper

Singer in Trionfo di Afrodite by Orff

Staatsoper Hamburg

Singer in If Bach had bred bees ... by Pärt

Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg

Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro by Mozar

Opernhaus Zürich

About

Sandra Hamaoui hasn't added a bio