Paris, April 2 – The Opéra de Paris has announced its 2026/2027 season, which will feature a robust program of 32 productions-19 operas and 12 ballet programs-across 359 performance days. This season is notable as it will be the last full-capacity season before significant renovation work begins on both the Palais Garnier and Opéra Bastille in the summer of 2027, expected to last until 2032.
Opera in Motion: Anniversaries, Creations, and Grand Returns
A major highlight of the season will be the completion of the Wagnerian Ring Cycle, commemorating the 150th anniversary of its creation in Bayreuth. From October 8 to 18, Opéra Bastille will host Götterdämmerung, conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado, featuring Tamara Wilson (Brünnhilde), Andreas Schager (Siegfried), Mika Kares (Hagen), Evmor Mod Jubo (Waltraute), and Brian Mulligan (Alberich). The full tetralogy, staged by Calixto Bieito, will then be presented in its entirety for the first time in Paris from November 6-13 and 15-22. According to Alexander Neef, General Director of the Opéra de Paris, 60% of tickets have already been sold, with 40% going to an international audience.
The season will include seven new operatic creations. It will open with a tribute to Josephine Baker (1906-1975), an iconic figure of the Roaring Twenties and a World War II resistance fighter. American director Peter Sellars and composer Tyshawn Sorey will present the world premiere of Black Pearl: Meditations for Josephine, starring Julia Bullock in the title role (Palais Garnier, September 9-19).
Mozart will also be prominently featured for the 270th anniversary of his birth. Don Giovanni will mark the Opéra de Paris debut of Louise Probst, founder of New York’s Heartbeat theater, offering a “feminine perspective, free from clichés” (Opéra Bastille, January 28 – February 26 and May 20 – June 24).
French director Wajdi Mouawad will offer an interpretation of Idomeneo, reflecting current ecological and humanitarian catastrophes in ancient Greek mythology. Allan Clayton, Léa Desandre, Johann Vallrot, and Elsa Dreisig will embody its “gods,” under the musical direction of Antonello Manacorda.
Catalan composer Héctor Parra will premiere his opera Le Miroir de nos peines, adapted from Pierre Lemaitre’s novel. Set in Paris in 1940 during the “Phoney War,” the story follows young Louise, intertwining the era’s chaos with her mother’s personal history. “This will be an accessible opera, expressing universally understood emotions-love, hate, fear-through very lyrical and exploratory music that becomes a mirror of ourselves,” promises the composer. The staging is entrusted to French director Mariam Clément, with musical direction by Ingo Metzmacher (April 24 – May 11, 2027).
After several years of absence, Jules Massenet’s Werther will return to the Opéra Bastille stage in a new production by Robert Carsen. Nathalie Stutzmann will make her Opéra de Paris debut conducting. Benjamin Bernheim and Michael Spyres will share the role of Werther, with Aïgul Akhmetshina as Charlotte.
Among the notable events of the 2026/27 season is the return of Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski. His production of Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet, which he staged “as a family chronicle with projections onto Eastern Europe” in our dark times, promises to be particularly relevant. The role of Hamlet will be performed by tenor John Osborne, Clémentine Margen will portray Gertrude, and Adela Zaharia will debut as Ophelia. Musical direction will be provided by Maestro Michael Schønwandt (September 18 – October 9).
Warlikowski’s radical interpretation of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was a triumph of the 2019 opera season, depicting passions, crimes, blood, and a gallery of ignoble characters, from informant to priest, revealing another facet of the famed Russian soul. Ingo Metzmacher conducts once again, with a highly praised cast including Aušrinė Stundytė, Dmitri Oulianov, Pavel Černoch, and Viktoria Karkacheva.
Ballet: Garnier in the Spotlight Before Renovation
Even though renovations are scheduled for next year, their prospect already influences the Opéra’s artistic policy. The management is focusing on the Palais Garnier, the historic ballet stage, to fully exploit its potential. Out of 12 creations and repertoire entries, 11 will take place at Garnier. Of the current repertoire, 6 out of 9 shows will also be scheduled on this stage. This concentration explains the near-total absence of major 19th-century classics: from Rudolf Nureyev’s legacy, only Raymonda is featured this season. Other emblematic ballets, intended for the Bastille stage, seem to have been deliberately reserved for future seasons.
For José Martínez, Director of Dance, this is his second season entirely curated by him, and he continues his stated course: striking a balance between classics and contemporary creations, between renowned choreographers and new talents-and, it must be emphasized, some well-known but long-forgotten names at the Opéra. Contemporary pointe creations, promised upon his appointment, are also beginning to find their place in the programming.
The 2026/27 season will feature four world premieres. The first will be by Brazilian choreographer Julian Nunes. Trained in classical dance in his native country, he continued his studies in Mainz. He danced with several German companies before joining the Royal Ballet of Flanders, directed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, where he explored the best of contemporary repertoire-from Van Manen to Forsythe and Naharin. In 2017, he began his choreographic career. Quickly noticed, he collaborated with NDT2, the Mariinsky, and created for Marie-Agnès Gillot in Paris and for Svetlana Lounkina and Evan McKie at the National Ballet of Canada.
José Martínez has now entrusted him with the company’s most experienced and media-savvy Étoiles, long-time friends and former rivals from dance school-Hugo Marchand and Germain Louvet. This duo, set to the music of Samuel Barber (1910-1981), Rings of Saturn, will be accessible to a limited audience: it will be presented at the gala on October 10.
For the Paysages intérieurs evening, Julian Nunes will be replaced by William Forsythe. The new 2024 version of Rearray will provide an excellent opportunity for the new generation to shine. Also featured is Vers un pays sage (1995), an emblematic work by Jean-Christophe Maillot dedicated to his father. The director of the Ballets de Monte-Carlo, who rarely works outside his company, will finally make his debut at the Opéra de Paris. The journey has been long: already solicited by Nureyev, he was only convinced to come by José Martínez.
To conclude Paysages intérieurs, another highly anticipated debut in Paris: Azur Barton-a former dancer with the Ballet du Canada and now one of the most prominent choreographers, appreciated by many artists, including Mikhail Baryshnikov. Her ballet Busk (2009) is an expressive black-and-white work, blending pantomime and classical vocabulary, set to gypsy and choral songs.
Lucinda Childs, 85, an iconic figure of American postmodernism, makes her grand return to the Opéra after a 42-year absence to present a new ballet set to music by Max Richter, in collaboration with French video artist Étienne Guiol. The piece will explore the coexistence of the living body and the digital on the same stage, echoing a principle already present in Dance, a 20th-century choreographic manifesto created in 1979 by Sol LeWitt and Philip Glass, where Childs played on two levels-body and visual space. Hopefully, this new ballet will also leave its mark on our century.
The Pulsations program blends the rhythm of time, heartbeat, and music, and also includes emblematic pieces from dance history: Martha Graham’s solo Lamentation as well as Schmetterling (2010), by Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, created to celebrate the NDT anniversary and mark the end of Lightfoot’s artistic directorship in the Netherlands.
At Opéra Bastille, a choreographic triptych will be presented in parallel (for the first time in many years, no major classical ballet is scheduled for this festive December program). Rituels will bring together Serge Lifar’s Suite en blanc, Israeli choreographer Shahar Binyamini’s Boléro X, and Pina Bausch’s Le Sacre du printemps, presented for the first time on the Bastille stage. Her son and heir, Salomon, approved the “move” of this masterpiece.
Since taking office, José Martínez has committed to enriching the Opéra’s repertoire with contemporary classical ballets-narrative, en pointe, and large-scale. The new creation by Kathy Marston, British choreographer and director of the Zurich Ballet, perfectly illustrates this ambition. An experienced narrator of contemporary choreographic language, Marston created a ballet around cellist Jacqueline du Pré for the Royal Opera House in London, and a tribute to pianist Clara Schumann for Zurich. For Paris, she chose to highlight George Sand, subtly exploring her relationships with Chopin, her mother, and her work-an intimate portrait to discover from February 12 to March 8, 2027.
And to conclude the season, the most intriguing creation comes from Johan Inger, a Swedish choreographer who, like his elder Mats Ek, tackles the reinterpretation of a romantic masterpiece from a contemporary angle. His version of Giselle, set to the original score by French composer Grégoire Etzel, known for his film scores, will be presented from June 25 to July 14.
Repertoire works that have not been revived for some time include George Balanchine’s Jewels (April 6 – May 18) and José Martínez’s Les Enfants du paradis (March 9 – 27). Having settled into his role as Director of Dance and having consolidated the company’s work, he can finally reconnect with his passion for choreography.
Another passion and initiative of José Martínez is the Junior Ballet and its first graduating class. Their performances will also take place at the Palais Garnier. After two years of training and intense touring, the young dancers will audition to join the main company. Places are rare and precious. But one will remain out of reach: on October 15, in L’Histoire de Manon, the public will bid a final farewell to Dorothée Gilbert, an Étoile whose exemplary career will continue to inspire future generations for a long time.
Source: cult.news
