The past year has seen some striking new operas premiered – from Dai Fujikura’s vision of Hokusai’s The Great Wave to John Tavener’s unique ritual-pageant Krishna, unheard since the composer’s death. The coming 2026–27 season has many world premieres worth looking out for, as well as new productions of recent operas too.
Maxim Kolomiiets: Mothers of Kherson
October sees the staged premiere of Ukrainian composer Maxim Kolomiiets’ Mothers of Kherson. Together with US librettist George Brant, this opera does something quite extraordinary – dramatise the ongoing war in Ukraine. Characters are drawn from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, occupied for much of 2022, during which time children and young people were separated from their families and often deported. Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Government’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, is a character in the opera – her alleged involvement in the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine has led to her arrest warrant by the ICC.
With concert performances already mounted in Kyiv, this autumn the staged world premiere is given in Warsaw by Polish National Opera. Conducted by Keri-Lynn Wilson (also of Ukrainian heritage), the production transfers to New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2028. The work’s musical language draws on southern Ukrainian folk song, and listeners can expect emotional directness and catharsis.
Žibuoklė Martinaitytė: Upside Down
The nearby Lithuanian National Opera is also mounting a world premiere this autumn – in September, leading Lithuanian composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė presents Upside Down, a stage work originating from a concept by Robert Wilson. Martinaitytė’s music is earthy and icy, glacial and oceanic, which suits this new work taking inspiration from Inuit poetry, Lithuanian myth and the northern landscape and seascape. While Wilson did not survive to oversee this work, its libretto is by Konrad Kuhn and direction by Nicola Panzer, both frequent Wilson collaborators. This new production runs at the beginning of Lithuanian National Opera’s season in September, repeated in May.
Missy Mazzoli: Lincoln in the Bardo
Stage drama from Missy Mazzoli and frequent collaborator Royce Vavrek is returning to the Metropolitan Opera this season in the shape of Lincoln in the Bardo, a long-anticipated adaptation of George Saunders’ Booker-winning novel of the same name. Originally due to be premiered in 2023 in Los Angeles, it was later moved to the Met, where Yannick Nézet-Séguin will conduct an ensemble cast led by baritone Peter Mattei as Abraham Lincoln.
Taking place over the course of a single evening, Lincoln is dealing with the sudden death of his son Willie and finds himself transported to a limbo-like plane of existence between this life and the next – the eponymous bardo. Drawing inspiration from Tibetan and Egyptian ideas of the afterlife, this halfway-state is populated by stubborn ghosts who refuse to accept their fate and move into the next world. Direction comes from Lileana Blain-Cruz, whose production of Mazzoli’s other recent opera The Listeners has received acclaim.
For those in the UK looking to catch Mazzoli’s distinctive operatic world, a new ENO production of Breaking the Waves is on the boards at the London Coliseum in February, with a cast led by Lauren Snouffer, who performed the central role of Bess to acclaim in Houston last year.
Du Yun: Red Fox
Royce Vavrek’s libretto-writing skills will also be on show in another new opera this season, Du Yun’s Red Fox, at Dutch National Opera from March. Following up from their award-winning Angel’s Bone, this piece is similarly eclectic, taking inspiration from Chinese folk music as well as Western classical and pop music. Dwelling on themes of identity and love – both topics in Angel’s Bone – characters include rice farmers, a pop singer, a retiree and her documentary filmmaker daughter, and a shape-shifting Celestial Fox. Beyond this, announced details are relatively slight. But stage direction is by Barrie Kosky, whose productions are always worth catching. Music direction is by Pierre Bleuse, with countertenor John Holiday (who shone in Kosky’s production of Akhnaten) in the title role.
Cassie Kinoshi: The Monster Trilogy
Another new work to look out for this season is from talented UK composer and saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi. Inspired by a text from US actor and writer Michael Matthews (1958–1996), who was based in the Netherlands for much of his life, The Monster Trilogy sees Matthews’ mixture of underground theatre, pop song and classic literature captured in three portraits: of Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and Mr Hyde. At DNO, Kinoshi adapts these monologues for an ensemble cast, combining elements from jazz, soul, 80s synth-pop, spoken word and classical opera. Worth catching from March in Amsterdam, and later touring around the Netherlands until June.
Bassem Akiki: Atatürk
Lebanese-Polish composer and conductor Bassem Akiki is another striking performer who has collaborated with DNO on multiple occasions, usually as a conductor, as well as a slew of other opera companies around the world. This April and May sees a new opera from Akiki at Staatsoper Stuttgart, Atatürk, dramatising the life of Mustafa Kemal, founder of the Republic of Turkey and “Father of the Turks”.
With a text by playwright Olga Bach, the work is not a straightforward bio-pic or chronological retelling of Kemal’s life, but rather a polyphonic exploration of his myth from varied perspectives. Text comes in German, Turkish, Armenian, Kurdish, French and Greek (with German and English surtitles), recounted by political allies, opponents, victims and those personally closest to him. The central role is taken by Matthias Klink, who has received acclaim for recent performances in Tobias Kratzer’s Ring cycle at Bavarian State Opera. Musical direction of this multifaceted score, full of waltzes and dervishes, will come from Akiki himself.
Hèctor Parra: Mirror of our sorrows
Paris also sees a new opera mounted in April with Hèctor Parra’s Mirror of our sorrows in a production directed by Mariame Clément at Opéra national de Paris. An adaptation of Pierre Lemaitre’s 2020 historical novel, this new work is set in 1940 amid the Phoney War and the subsequent German occupation of France. A choral opera drawing on 1930s chanson well as French music drama of the 20th century, Parra’s work is a study of several intertwined characters – a waitress, a deserter, and a street singer who may also be the Minister of Information. Vannina Santoni and Leigh Melrose are among the ensemble cast, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher.
Prach Boondiskulchok: Burmese Days
Another intriguing adaptation will be worth catching in June: a new opera from British-Thai composer Prach Boondiskulchok. Burmese Days is a collaboration with Hong Kong-born British poet Sarah Howe, and this chamber opera will be a unique opportunity to see a musical adaptation of George Orwell’s first novel from a Southeast Asian perspective. Boondiskulchok combines traditional Burmese hsaing waing and piphat folk ensembles with Western instrumentation, finding the contrast between traditional Burmese philosophy and the mechanised violence of the British occupation in the waning days of empire. With a cast to be announced, the production at Brussels’ La Monnaie will be by young director Aïda Gabriels.
Lucia Ronchetti: Battaglia – The Women of Palermo
Italian composer Lucia Ronchetti received praise for her 2021 adaptation of Dante’s Inferno at Oper Frankfurt (it received its Italian premiere earlier this year). In June 2027 Ronchetti presents another opera in Frankfurt on a classic Italian subject: the Mafia – specifically the war of Sicilian Cosa Nostra which raged from the 1970s. Battaglia – The Women of Palermo has a text by Russian poet and novelist Maria Stepanova, focusing on photographer Letizia Battaglia and the women caught up in the violence: mothers, daughters, wives of embattled and murdered men.
Drawing from documentary sources, including L’Ora, the Sicilian daily newspaper where Battaglia worked, the opera has echoes of Euripides’ Trojan Women and Dante’s Divine Comedy, as Battaglia is drawn into a limbo-like afterlife in her effort to excavate the women of Palermo. The production is directed by Claus Guth, with a cast including Cecelia Hall and Anna Nekhames.
See upcoming opera world premieres and new productions of contemporary opera.
