Singer

Join us as we usher in a new season and celebrate opera, music, the marvel of the human voice, creativity, and the many-layered artistry of a genre that delights and stirs all the senses.

Iván Fischer has renewed The Magic Flute. Mozart’s opera transports us into a world of enchantment, allowing an escape from the daily grind. Join us for tasty hors d'oeuvres before the curtain rises, served in an atmosphere created by fashion designer Eszter Cselényi and unmistakably evoking the world of Mozart himself. After the opera, guests of the BFO and Müpa Budapest are invited to an informal gathering to meet the artists and creators participating in the performance. Selfies allowed! Gone will be the distance between stage and audience, and art will become tangible. An evening of connections and once-in-a-lifetime encounters.

Opera and Reception: Celebration in the Realm of the Queen of the Night

Müpa Budapest

The rays of sun chase night away.” If there is an opera for everyone, an opera about the very essence of life, it’s The Magic Flute. For the first time since 2015, Iván Fischer will once again bring to the stage Mozart’s philosophical tale, where good and bad, light and darkness, right and wrong, courage and fear, wisdom and superstition, vengeance and mercy are juxtaposed. The opera, which is Mozart’s last work for the stage, is an initiation ceremony and a moral tale about the journey to adulthood. “It’s an inscrutable work of magical power,” says Fischer, who is particularly awed by the opera’s optimism, humor, playfulness, fairy tale-like quality, deep humanism, or, in a single word, complexity. The international cast includes Mozart specialists from the world’s leading opera houses, several of whom are already familiar to the BFO’s audiences.

Fischer and The Magic Flute

Celebration in the Realm of the Queen of the Night – Reception

Arthur Honegger's poignant oratorio "Joan of Arc at the Stake" movingly portrays the final hours of the French national heroine. Condemned as a heretic, the young woman remains steadfast to the very end – a symbol of civil courage, faith, and inner strength.

8th Symphony Concert

Georg-Friedrich-Händel-Halle

Carmen is a freedom-loving woman who casts a spell on any man that crosses her path. Don José is a buttoned-down sergeant who falls for her charms. But when she turns her attention to another, José's love turns into obsession. With Carmen, Bizet created a true operatic classic replete with passion and sweeping melodies.

Carmen

Oper Leipzig

Three worlds, three waters, three lives merge into one breath: Anouk, a young writer, endures a relentless struggle to draw breath, as she suffers from cystic fibrosis. This struggle leads her on a journey into the past, to another country, to another woman. She is spellbound as she reconstructs the mysterious story of the »Inconnue de la Seine«, the unknown body found in the Seine shrouded in secrecy. As Anouk immerses herself in this French tragedy, she recognises the connections between her own life, that of the unknown woman, and that of a Norwegian dollmaker. The man, scarred by the loss of his drowned son, designs a doll that can be used to learn mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He selects the death mask of the »Inconnue de la Seine« for the doll's visage, and its smile will now save lives. This opera links three lives across the flow of time. The Leipzig-based composer Bernd Franke, who explores musical, social and topographical boundaries, has created a life-affirming, hope-filled opera that crosses times and countries. In the end, everything is one and we are a part of it.

Coming up for air

As is tradition, this year too, with the exception of Offenbach, whose famous Can-can will be performed , the New Year's concert will feature Viennese waltz and operetta composers, particularly Johann Strauss Jr., Franz Lehár, Eduard Künneke, Emmerich Kálmán , and Robert Stolz. Johann Strauss Jr. will open the concert with the Overture to Die Fledermaus (The Fledermaus ), which, premiered on April 5, 1874, to great acclaim at the Theater an-der Wien, is his most famous and important operetta. Indeed, Strauss, the famous waltz king , had, before this work, devoted himself to the theater with little success. The resounding failure of the first performance of his operetta Der Karneval in Rom  ( Carnival in Rome ) in 1873 had discouraged Strauss to the point of leading him to stop writing for the theatre, despite Offenbach having predicted great success in this field as well ten years earlier. It was most likely the high quality of Richard Genée's libretto that convinced Strauss, who, immediately attracted by the text, composed the operetta in just 43 days. The libretto by Richard Genée and Carl Haffner draws its inspiration from the vaudeville play Le reveillon ( The New Year's Eve Party ), written by the duo Meilhac and Halévy and translated into German by Karl Haffner at the request of the director of the Carltheater, Maximilian Steiner. At the first performance, the audience gave unanimous approval to the overture . In it, in a musical structure that only apparently recalls sonata form, all the main motifs of the operetta appear, especially that of the trio from Act III that runs through it from beginning to end. The rhythm of dance dominates the composition, and in particular that of the waltz, which reaches its climax in the reprise of the rousing theme from the ball scene that concludes Act II. The duet " Komm mit mir zum Souper" ( Come to Dinner with Me ) is taken from Act I, in which Falke, the bat, invites the landowner Eisenstein to the ball to be held at Prince Orlofsky's villa. The theme of this duet would be used by Strauss in the Fledermaus-Polka  of 1874. Richard Genée, this time together with Friedrich Zell, provided Strauss with the libretto of Eine Nacht in Venedig ( A Night in Venice).) which, however, was a real fiasco at its first performance in Berlin on 3 October 1883. The libretto, set in 18th-century Venice, was the one most criticised. Guido, Duke of Urbino, had organized a party in the ducal palace, where love and mockery were intertwined. Among the most beautiful passages is Ach, wie so herrlich zu schaun ( Ah, how splendid it is to behold ), sung in the third act by the duke, whose melody would later be used by Strauss in the Lagunen-Walzer , in a mutual interchange between his instrumental and theatrical production, which characterised other works by the Austrian composer. An example of this is the waltz Rosen aus dem Süden (Roses of the South) , which is melodically related to the operetta Das Spitzentuch der Königin ( The Queen's Lace Handkerchief ), which was first performed to considerable acclaim on 1 October 1880 at the Theater an der Wien. The waltz was a greater success than the operetta itself at its premiere on 7 November 1880 at the Musikverein, conducted by his brother Eduard, and was appreciated above all for the poetic nature of its music, rich in a typically Viennese charm, which was already present in the introduction. Published in two different versions, the second of which is dedicated to King Umberto I with the deepest respect , this work draws its melodic material precisely from two arias from the operetta, including the king's aria from the first act, Stets kommt mir Wieder in den Sinn (Always come back to me ), the famous refrain that Strauss claimed to have rewritten 12 times, and from the romance from the second act, Wo die wilde Rose erblüht (Where the wild rose blooms) . Perpetuum mobile (Perpetual motion) , op. 257, on the other hand, has no relation to the production of operettas, the composition of which should instead be linked to Strauss's concert activity. In 1861, the Austrian composer, riding the wave of successes achieved during the Carnival of 1859 and 1860, in the benefit concerts conducted by himself and his brother Josef, who, leading two different orchestras, performed around fifty dances, organized an even more ambitious show with three balls in a single evening which was announced by the newspaper « Fremden-Blatt » : “For the first time in Vienna.

New Year's Concert

Teatro Politeama Garibaldi

On December 10, 1895, the “Club La Bohème” met for the first time. The club – an irreverent artist's guild of literary types and painters – reminded Giacomo Puccini of his years both as a student and as a bohémien. While his friends drank wine and played cards, Puccini composed. One day, he suddenly cried out from his spot at the piano "Quiet, boys! I've finished!" Shortly thereafter, the full score of this legendary opera was finished, and the show, with its wonderful love story between Mimi and Rodolfo, was on stage. Without ever visiting Paris, Puccini captured the city's atmosphere, from the flair of its cafes to the bleak frost of a winter's day. His clear characterization of the opera's protagonists and their sense of emptiness sets the characterizations of desperation and loss, not to mention the opera's central theme of love. In the end the characters are even more lost, in doubt and alone.

La Bohème

For over a century, Engelbert Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera “Hänsel and Gretel” has been enchanting generations of young opera-goers. Not insignificantly, the premiere of this work took place on the night before Christmas Eve. To this day, this beloved opera is performed near Christmastime in many opera houses. After all, Christmas is a time for family, and »Hänsel and Gretel« is a family opera par excellence: While their children's eyes widen in wonder at their first opera experience, parents can reminisce and delight in nostalgia. In this new production, director Birgit Eckenweber, together with her set and costume designer Alexander Mudlagk, sends Hansel and Gretel into a fantastical fairy-tale world that's guaranteed to fascinate. Ah, to be young again!

Hansel and Gretel

Welcome to the mysterious fairy-tale world of the »Magic Flute«! Even the names of the characters sound magical and remind us of our first visits to the opera: Tamino, Pamina, Papageno, Sarastro … Hardly any other work of opera literature includes so many contradictory elements, so harmoniously combined into a coherent entity by Mozart's music. Is his arguably most popular opera an adventure story about growing up? A parable of wisdom, philosophy and friendship? Is it simply about staying true to oneself, like the bird catcher Papageno? He accompanies Prince Tamino, who has fallen in love with a picture of the kidnapped Pamina and plans to free her. We are reminded that the world cannot always be divided into good and evil: the Queen of the Night and Sarastro illustrate this to us through their quarrel over Pamina. On our journey we are also accompanied by three ladies, three boys, a glockenspiel, and a flute that tames even the wildest animals.

The Magic Flute

Sir John Falstaff is a man who wants it all: money, power, women, pleasure – and control. But in Giuseppe Verdi's opera, it is the women who call the shots. Alice Ford, Meg Page and Mrs Quickly confront Falstaff's audacity with wit and ingenuity, challenging an order that tries to force them into rigid roles and monotonous dreariness.

Falstaff

»Der Rosenkavalier« is a “literature opera”, a disguise comedy, a trial about the transience of time, about holding on and letting go. A work of modern times, which looks back to a completely different time, a homage to an invented past: at times melancholic-lyrical, at times in a waltz beat, at times in a comic parlando

Der Rosenkavalier

The opera has barely gotten underway before the first death occurs and Don Giovanni is in hot pursuit. But this does not stop the seducer of all seducers from going after the next woman: he adores them all! His wildly colourful exploits sweep him through all social strata, regardless to whether the lady of choice is already involved with someone else. Even if one may have slight doubts when it comes to the total number of his conquests – 1470! – Don Giovanni's appeal amongst women is undeniable. But what exactly is his secret?

Don Giovanni

We've all been there: in hotels, you're always fascinated by people from all over the world and their customs! And when this motley crew find themselves in a tizzy because they all want to go to Paris for the coronation but are prevented from doing so by the transportation system? And when the Hotel zur Goldenen Lilie is run by an excellent proprietor like Madame Cortese, who is determined to make her guests' stay unforgettable, virtuoso, colorful entertainment is guaranteed. Love potions, deft personnel, fainting spells due to a missing hatbox, f librations and misunderstandings culminate in a banquet with international toasts: long live the monarch and long live international understanding!

The Journey to Reims

“And the whole thing ended happily,” wrote Weber about his new opera Der Freischütz to his bride Caroline Brandt in March of 1817. But before everything can end happily ever after in this eerie story about fear of failure, societal constraints, and the individual’s right to happiness, the abyss opens up, and for a moment it seems as though evil will prevail. Max, the young forester, knows that his social standing and romantic prospects are dependent upon his performance at the traditional test of skill in marksmanship. But the only way he sees to pass the test involves a deal with the devil. Kaspar, disillusioned, has already submitted to the devil. And Agathe, betrothed to Max, must ask herself: “Do I leave myself to the hand of Fate?” Troubled, she tries to fight against what she perceives to be her destiny’s inevitability. Like all of the characters in the opera, she believes that her God has a true enemy. Weber created a unique musical context in which his characters’ thoughts and deeds all take place in a religious-demonic world, one that is entangled with the dark powers

Der Freischütz

La Traviata is the final work in the Trilogia Popolare, Verdi’s trio of masterpieces written between 1850-52. Once again, he was inspired by an outsider: after the jester in Rigoletto and the gypsy Azucena in Il Trovatore, the courtesan Violetta Valéry -- a woman whose charm surpasses her predecessors -- takes center stage here. The Parisian demimonde is the setting for the story of the unconditional and hopeless love between Alfredo Germont and the terminally ill Violetta. From the very beginning, their love is threatened not only by death, but also by the norms of the society and the honor of a family.

La Traviata

The Young Siegfried (the original title of Wagner’s libretto) tells the story of the son of Siegmund and Sieglinde, the Wälsung pair. After his father’s death at Hunding’s hand, and his mother’s death in childbirth, Siegfried is raised by Mime. Siegfried tells the story of a young man railing against his foster father, who, though he claims to have the boy’s best interests at heart, is only interested in Siegfried as a part of his plan to claim the treasure of the Niebelungen from Fafner the dragon. Only one who has no fear can defeat Fafner. And so Siegfried forges his sword, slays Fafner, and claims the ring and the Tarnhelm for himself.

Siegfried

For over a century, Engelbert Humperdinck’s fairy-tale opera »Hänsel and Gretel« has been enchanting generations of young opera-goers. Not insignificantly, the premiere of this work took place on the night before Christmas Eve. To this day, this beloved opera is performed near Christmastime in many opera houses. After all, Christmas is a time for family, and »Hänsel and Gretel« is a family opera par excellence: While their children’s eyes widen in wonder at their first opera experience, parents can reminisce and delight in nostalgia. In this new production, director Birgit Eckenweber, together with her set- and costume designer Alexander Mudlagk, sends Hansel and Gretel into a fantastical fairy-tale world that’s guaranteed to fascinate. Ah, to be young again!

Hänsel und Gretel

The brave knight Amadis is held responsible for the disappearance of the brother of Arcabonne and Arcalaus. The two use their magical powers and mobilize the demonic underworld to lure Amadis into their realm and defeat him once and for all. Suddenly, nothing is as it seems: Amadis is abandoned in the forest by his beloved Princess Oriane and held captive in Arcalau's secret laboratory. All seems lost... but fortunately the powers of heaven have something to say about it.

Amadis, the Knight

Welcome to the mysterious fairy-tale world of the »Magic Flute«! Even the names of the characters sound magical and remind us of our first visits to the opera: Tamino, Pamina, Papageno, Sarastro … Hardly any other work of opera literature includes so many contradictory elements, so harmoniously combined into a coherent entity by Mozart's music . Is his arguably most popular opera an adventure story about growing up? A parable of wisdom, philosophy and friendship? Is it simply about staying true to oneself, like the bird catcher Papageno? He accompanies Prince Tamino, who has fallen in love with a picture of the kidnapped Pamina and plans to free her. We are reminded that the world cannot always be divided into good and evil: the Queen of the Night and Sarastro illustrate this to us through their quarrel over Pamina. On our journey we are also accompanied by three ladies, three boys, a glockenspiel, and a flute that tames even the wildest animals.

“The rays of sun chase night away.” If there is an opera for everyone, an opera about the very essence of life, it’s The Magic Flute. For the first time since 2015, Iván Fischer will once again bring to the stage Mozart’s philosophical tale, where good and bad, light and darkness, right and wrong, courage and fear, wisdom and superstition, vengeance and mercy are juxtaposed. The opera, which is Mozart’s last work for the stage, is an initiation ceremony and a moral tale about the journey to adulthood. “It’s an inscrutable work of magical power,” says Fischer, who is particularly awed by the opera’s optimism, humor, playfulness, fairy tale-like quality, deep humanism, or, in a single word, complexity. The international cast includes Mozart specialists from the world’s leading opera houses, several of whom are already familiar to the BFO’s audiences.

“The Magic Flute is a childhood experience for everyone that accompanies them throughout their lives. Because this opera speaks to both children and adults.” Fischer shares his own experiences, as he and his brother participated in a production of the work held in the Opera House as children. Much later, the Festival Orchestra’s opera performances also traditionally began with a semi-staged production of The Magic Flute at the Liszt Academy in the early 1990s.

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Winterfestspiele Baden-Baden: Fischer and Die Zauberflöte

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

“The rays of sun chase night away.” If there is an opera for everyone, an opera about the very essence of life, it’s The Magic Flute. For the first time since 2015, Iván Fischer will once again bring to the stage Mozart’s philosophical tale, where good and bad, light and darkness, right and wrong, courage and fear, wisdom and superstition, vengeance and mercy are juxtaposed. The opera, which is Mozart’s last work for the stage, is an initiation ceremony and a moral tale about the journey to adulthood. “It’s an inscrutable work of magical power,” says Fischer, who is particularly awed by the opera’s optimism, humor, playfulness, fairy tale-like quality, deep humanism, or, in a single word, complexity. The international cast includes Mozart specialists from the world’s leading opera houses, several of whom are already familiar to the BFO’s audiences.

Vicenza Opera Festival: Fischer and The Magic Flute

Teatro Olimpico

Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra present Mozart's Magic Flute in a semi-staged format which Fischer developed at his opera festival in Vicenza. He traveled to the city to work on his "third way": a new unity of sound and directing where the ear guides the body. After last year’s Don Giovanni, Fischer is now conducting an opera at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden for the second time.

Soprano

Samantha Gaul

Events

Upcoming events

Oct 23 - Dec 20, 2026

Winterfestspiele Baden-Baden: Fischer and Die Zauberflöte · Budapest Fes­ti­val Orches­tra

Oct 25 - Dec 20, 2026

Vicenza Opera Festival: Fischer and The Magic Flute · Budapest Fes­ti­val Orches­tra

18 - 20 Dec, 2026

The Magic Flute · Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

Past events

Sep 9, 2026

Opera and Reception: Celebration in the Realm of the Queen of the Night · Budapest Fes­ti­val Orches­tra

Sep 9, 2026

Fischer and The Magic Flute · Budapest Fes­ti­val Orches­tra

Future and recently performed repertoire

Gretel in Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck

Oper Leipzig

Ännchen in Der Freischütz by Weber

Oper Leipzig

Musetta in La bohème by Puccini

Oper Leipzig

Pamina in The Magic Flute by Mozart

Oper Leipzig

Frasquita in Carmen by Bizet

Oper Leipzig

Annina in La traviata by Verdi

Oper Leipzig

Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier by Strauss

Oper Leipzig

Gretel in Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck

Oper Leipzig

Singer in Rosen aus dem Süden by II

Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana

Zerlina in Don Giovanni by Mozart

Oper Leipzig

Singer in Die Fledermaus by Strauss

Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana

Nannetta in Falstaff by Verdi

Oper Leipzig

Singer in Eine Nacht in Venedig by II

Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana

Singer in Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher by Honegger

Staatskapelle Halle

Pamina in The Magic Flute, K. 620 by Mozart

Budapest Fes­ti­val Orches­tra

Singer in Der Favorit by Stolz

Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana

About

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Winterfestspiele Baden-Baden: Fischer and Die Zauberflöte · Budapest Festival Orchestra

Vicenza Opera Festival: Fischer and The Magic Flute · Budapest Festival Orchestra

Opera and Reception: Celebration in the Realm of the Queen of the Night · Budapest Festival Orchestra

Fischer and The Magic Flute · Budapest Festival Orchestra

Budapest Festival Orchestra